I
can’t explain why they were where they were. But that’s where
I found them. In all the wrong boxes, defying the labels and making
no sense.
But
they must have made sense at one time. Right? Was the organization
just a chaotic mess? Perhaps. Was I rushing and missed something?
Perhaps. Did I feel differently on the night of packing than I
did on the night of rediscovery? Perhaps. And yet…
Three
cardboard boxes, each with a label. According to those labels,
nothing more than empty 3-ring binders in all of them. Pretty
straightforward. I opened them up and checked them out, and the
second box had a binder that looked a little different. More of
a three-ring photo album than a binder.
Inside
the binder were four pages. Not much. Definitely enough. Pictures,
long since forgotten, of our two dogs, Lady and Travis.
What
the heck were these doing here?
The
year was noted as 2001. That would have been long before we owned
our first digital camera. Chances are good the negatives are lost
to time. Tear apart this box haphazardly and a priceless treasure—priceless
to us—gone.
That’s
just one of the discoveries.
Newspaper
articles. Some with coverage of family members. Some with graduation
details. All at least three decades old.
Remember
the video game system you’ve had off to the side for years, but
can’t bring yourself to throw out? You have no games for it. Kept
it anyway. Well, there’s a box, which without warning or notice
holds two controllers and some games. Could happen to you. (It
just happened to me.)
And
there’s no way that’s our wedding video. Right? We had that converted
to a disc and lost the original long ago. Right? Wrong. It is
the original, along with a disc of raw footage.
There’s
been some stunning stuff turning up in our basement. And one thing
tonight almost brought me to tears. A folder with some old school
papers. On the top, a handwritten and stapled packet. It was a
report, from forty years ago, documenting a family vacation. It
happened during the school year, with all of us getting on a plane
and flying to Disney World. How old was it really? The Magic Kingdom
was the only theme park.
If
you asked me for some things that I could recall having, but never
thought I’d see again, well… pictures of our dogs and the report
from that vacation would be two of them.
Ok,
so everything isn’t a treasure. I honestly don’t believe I will
ever use my bowling ball again. Surprised to see it. Doubt I’ll
need it.
Terry
and I have things all over the house. Computer files. Scrapbooks
and photo albums. We know where they are. And, we seldom pull
them out to look them over. It’s almost like they’re taken for
granted because we know we have them.
But
the past few days have been a whirlwind of funny moments. Absolutely
there have been plenty of things to throw away, but finding the
unexpected is providing a lot of treats.
I
wonder if there’s some larger lesson in here. Something about
friendships and relationships. Ones that never went bad, but just
kind of slid away and off to the side because they weren’t nurtured.
We know they are there. We just don’t take the time to check them
out every so often.
Do
yourself a favor. Open a box or two.