People often ask me why I save “weird things”. Now, I don’t always know how to answer that or what exactly is defined as weird.
What I think people mean are things like an old GE fan that has long since lost its cord, an old badge from grandfather from a world war in which he was in charge of blackouts, and a flattened penny that another grandfather put down on a track for me mostly because I asked, but also because my cousin had a fake one and I wanted a real one.
I also have things that make even less sense I suppose, like an old Bible (which I have never read) with pages loose and falling out, an old chair from a favorite aunt, that isn’t pretty to look at, but suits me. I also have an old cigar box from when I was much younger which is penned in big letters, ROCKS, ETC.
This box has for many years been a prize of mine. I can only imagine what rock would have been beautiful enough to put in this cigar box, but I also can’t help wondering what the ETC. meant.
The box now has found its home on an old bookshelf and is filled with that flattened penny, my favorite old pictures, some rosary beads, one rock, one shell and one button.
I don’t know what most of them meant to me then, and I only guess as to their meaning now.
But I do know this to be true:
We keep things.
Things come in all shapes in sizes, some old, some new, some broken, some heavily laden with deep tradition and some also laden with a tradition that we can only guess at. We hang on to rare buttons that will never have a match, a shiny stone that meant the world decades ago, and old photos that somehow tie us to another time.
We were there, yes?.and it was simpler, and good? ahhhh.
We keep these things to remind us times gone by but to also remind us that time goes by.
As children we collect them, like tiny treasures, and hide them, and cherish, and look at them often, with flashlights, under our covers, late at night.
As we grow older, we keep them even closer. We hold these tiny, mysterious buttons and flattened pennies and smile. We cover ourselves with old crocheted blankets that our Nana made, and sigh. Somehow these tiny mementos from our times past, and their times past seem to connect us, always.
Sometimes, life moves fast and we need these pennies and pictures to keep a small part still with us, on a day to day basis. And sometimes, life refuses to go. Sometimes it holds on, long past when it should, for reasons we may never understand on this earthly plane. And when this ultimate sadness does occur, we often find ourselves reaching for those tiny buttons, and flattened pennies, and old fans, as a way to connect not with those who are gone, but as a way to reach out to those who have gone ahead and are waiting.
So while I don’t know all there is to know, and would never ever want to, I am sitting with a small candle, a flat penny, and old fan, asking those that have gone before to come now?..Sometimes there is nothing left to do but ask, and ask, and ask.
I guess that’s at least part of the answer.
Peace , always….Chris
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