A Sense of History

One of the weird things about life here is that we only seem to get work done around the house when someone isn’t home. Mina accomplished most of the unpacking while I spent a weekend out of town, and I finally got around to the decorating when she was out of town last week. When I had finally set myself upon thicket of cardboard in the spare bedroom I found myself wading through a lot of her stuff that I had never really seen before. High school yearbooks, glossies from her modeling days, and many many animal figurines. And as I looked at this pile of so many scattered pieces that fit together in the shape of a life, I was overwhelmed with a sense of the gift I am given.

It’s easy to take for granted the people around you as they are. You take people as they come, but it is hard to appreciate what made them what they are, and what it took for them to become who they are today. But there, among all of her things, the tokens of another person’s memory collected in my house, I began to have a sense of everything I had in my life. And sitting there, in a pile of memories, I was baffled by a simple thought, an inability to comprehend how I could worthy of all of this. But then, that is my challenge every day I’m with her, to earn what she has given.

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We have been quiet of late, since Mina has been out of town. She’s back now. So, we won’t be so quiet in the future.