She
read a lot, and she loved Christmas. All
her caring friends knew about these wonderful habits of hers. They gave her books, and they gave her a
little something every year for Christmas.
She
had no children, and her husband was long gone.
When she was in her 90’s, she had to be placed in an assisted living
home by a nephew. They donated all her
things to the local Discovery shop.
She
cared for the people who gave her the books.
Inside many of them, I found notes in her tiny cursive hand: from the
Parsons. To Glenda from the Andrews,
Christmas 1978. From Charles 2013. Only a few of the books had grown mold or
dust, and I was charmed by all but the broken spines in her ten giant boxes of
books.
Across
the room from me and the masses of books, was one of my favorite sorters. She was standing in front of the Christmas
ornaments going through one container at a time. There were ten boxes packed to the top. Most of these too had notes with them. The sorter saved the notes, and I was amazed
by the variety: From Peter’s Construction, From G Shell Design…but the price
was still on it. Perhaps she bought this
one. Another pink Post-it told me that
the Crystal Tree, Night Lites and Crystal Reindeer were all purchased in
91. All these, and many were tiny things,
were dated. Some were bought or given in
the 1960’s, and others were far newer.
She
sewed too. And there were dolls. Did I mention that the furniture was to
arrive today? We are very grateful to
the folks that remember the American Cancer Society with their donations. Right now we have two part time, paid staff,
and everything else is run by volunteers.
All our profits go to cancer research.
Thank
you for remembering us.
I purchased some nice mediation CDs and almost fell asleep listening to them. Good stuff. What a story is awaiting us in those boxes of donations.
ReplyDeletethe story of a life all packaged up in donated boxes.
ReplyDeleteSo very sweet. wow
ReplyDeleteI worry a lot about accumulating things for my children to have to sort through. We are sorting and giving things away faster than we are acquiring them. Much of what we have is only interesting to us and maybe our kids, although our property would be in demand.
ReplyDeleteSounds pretty pragmatic, but I do appreciate what you do! And we give a lot of stuff away to the Goodwill and other places.
I loved this post. Pure history in those artifacts from a life well lived. Sad too.
ReplyDeleteMy Mom labeled everything too. She was in love with post-its. Those notes are like a diary.
ReplyDeleteIf I were Glenda I'd be happy for someone like you Mage to sort out my treasures.
ReplyDeleteThrift shops provide accessible anthropology. Lovely post.
ReplyDelete