I stood in the store for a long time looking for the right card that could convey my feelings and show that I was thinking of someone at one point or the other in their life. I was never able to find one every time I stood in the store looking for a card I would hear an inner voice saying write them a note you dork and I stand there in the card aisle laughing to myself looking like a nut to those standing around me.This happens way to often trying to find a card that is personal and says to that person how you feel about them.
The whole card thing is like pulling your own teeth when you are looking for that special card. For instance on Fathers Day my Father was incapacitated with Multiple Sclerosis so those Dad mowing the yard or golfing,fishing etc never worked but each year I would look through hundreds of cards trying to find that card to say just the right thing. I would often be forced to just grab what ever they had sign it and send it off in the mail but never felt the card said what I really wanted even after writing a personal note inside. Now days you can make your own cards on the computer but there was a time you had to pick from the lousy selection at the cards they had at the store. I often end up going with the humorous card and I feel that just says more about my personality than the person I am sending the card to.
I over the years saved a few cards that really meant something to me or because of who sent them. My Grandfather Elsie used to without fail send every year each grandchild a card with one crisp dollar bill in it and I saved everyone of them, the cards that is not the dollar that bought candy. At the time I did not realize how special those cards from him would be to me latter in life until that first year after he passed I did not receive my card from him. I saved all my graduation cards and a few special cards sent by friends or family members over the years. I know some people who save every card they get, saved in boxes usually old shoe boxes in a closet or stashed in the attic or basement. Boxes and boxes of old Christmas cards Birthday, Mothers Day etc sent by people all over the US. and the world. Those cards often set in the dark saved for some future reason that never comes. Left in boxes in dark places until the passing of that person and then are often discarded by loved ones left behind because those cards and letters often mean nothing to them and I am sure they wonder why they were saved in the first place.
I every so often do a sort of spring cleaning and go though boxes of saved items and rethink if I should hold on to them or toss them out. It always seems I spend more time strolling down memory lane than cleaning but do let a few things go now and then. I am not a hoarder by any means but some items I have a hard time separating from. I have come across old love letters from X girlfriends and poems I wrote and post cards sent saying wish you were here. I wonder if they really wished I was there or just rubbing it in that they were on some awesome trip having a blast without me? Those Family Christmas letters sent to catch you up on what was going on in their lives through out the past year. I do love those do not get me wrong but always when reading them I wonder if their lives were really that fantastic and wonderful and why most omit any bad things that happened. I thought about writing one of those a few years ago but after looking it over thought dang if they read that they will be sending the men in white coats to rescue me.
Being that person who has the daunting task of sorting through a loved ones items that has passed can be emotionally draining. Looking at a persons life spread out before you in cards letters photos and little saved items you have to make the decisions on what stays and what goes. Even after it is all sorted out you feel like a wicked ogre as you place the discarded items in the trash as if you personally are diminished their legacy left behind. I worked for a brief time at a retirement complex and when many of those people pass with no family their belongings are boxed up and put into storage in case some person materializes and wants to claim them. Most places hold those items for a set time and if not claimed they are placed into the dumpster. I was once given the task of hauling many of those boxes to the trash and as I put them in the dumpster the lids fell off and each persons life spewed forth in cards letters and old photos from the past. I did not even know any of those people but I felt a tear come to my eye as I lowered the lid on possibly the only things they had left behind.
As I closed the lid on those boxes sprawled in the dumpster I thought to myself .....I hope I do not outlive my loved ones and that I live my life so that I am surrounded by others when I pass and not alone in some old folks home. I do not want to be just a box of cards and letters etc thrown upon the trash heap. I hope I leave good memories behind for someone and that they think of me now and then and that thought brings a smile to their face and maybe even a laugh or two.
Before my Sister passed away from cancer I went with my Mom to sort through her things and box up her life. That day is burnt into my brain and was a very difficult day fingering through her personal items knowing she was still with us but so sick she could not do it her self. I found a box of cards and in there were cards I had sent her when I was very young and they had my chicken scratch writing almost unreadable. I was touched she had saved them and that they had survived all that time. She had moved many times and had a rough life but there those cards and letters were saved in a shoe box and had made the journey with her. We boxed everything up and loaded the items in the car taking them back to my Parents house were my Sister was staying and would in the end take her last breath. After she passed her belongings were divided up between her kids and many items made there way to the trash. I had not taken the cards and letters because it did not feel right to take them while she was still alive. Those cards and letters were lost in the shuffle and I never saw them again but have the memory that she cared enough to keep them all those years.
People often ask why or how I remember certain events in my life. Often it is because I had saved some little reminder of that time a post card or souvenir I had bought but mostly it is because I have a letter or a card and the fact I kept journals. I kept journals for many years and while in the Army I trusted the United States to ship many of my items when I ended my tour of duty that was a bad choice on my part. One of my boxes that had been shipped disappeared and was never seen again. In that box was many letters, journals and cards from my past also one of my photo albums and a book of poems I had wrote and one book of poems that a friend had written and given to me before I left to go into the Army. Many of those memories are lost but I am sure stored someplace in my brain but were I do not know.
I guess all this rambling I am doing is me trying to say I hope in the end when I must go on to the next adventure the universe has planed for me that I am not just a box of old cards and letters left behind that ends up in a dumpster or on the curb for the trash person. I hope my time here will have been spent well and that in some way I leave an impression on those I have come in contact with and that it is a good impression.
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