Memories of how things used to be...
Keeping things
Some things you keep. Like good teeth. Warm coats. Bald husbands.
They're good for you, reliable and practical and so sublime that to
throw them away would make the garbage man a thief. So you hang on,
because something old is sometimes better than something new, and what
you know is often better than a stranger.
These are my thoughts, they make me sound old, old and tame, and dull
at a time when everybody else is risky and racy and flashing all that's
new and improved in their lives. New careers, new thighs, new lips,
new cars. The world is dizzy with trade-ins. I could keep track, but
I don't think I want to.
I grew up in the fifties with practical parents - a mother, God bless
her, who washed aluminum foil after she cooked in it, then reused it -
and still does.
(My grandma always washed out the bread bags and reused them instead
of buying plastic storage bags) A father who was happier getting old
shoes fixed than buying new ones.
(My grandpa knew the shoe repairman by his first name!)
They weren't poor, my parents, they were just satisfied. Their
marriage was good, their dreams focused. Their best friends lived
barely a wave away.
I can see them now, Dad in trousers and tee shirt and Mom in a house
dress, lawn mower in one hand, dish towel in the other. It was a time
for fixing things - curtain rod, the kitchen radio, screen door, the
oven door, the hem in a dress.
Things you keep. It was a way of life, and sometimes it made me
crazy.
All that re-fixing, re-heating, renewing, I wanted just once to be
wasteful.
Waste meant affluence. Throwing things away meant there'd always be
more.
But then my father died, and on that clear autumn night, in the chill
of the hospital room, I was struck with the pain of learning that
sometimes there isn't any 'more.' Sometimes what you care about most
gets all used up and goes away, never to return.
So, while you have it, it's best to love it and care for it and fix it
when it's broken and heal it when it's sick.
That's true for marriage, and old cars, and children with bad report
cards, and dogs with bad hips, and aging parents. You keep them
because
they're worth it, because you're worth it.
Some things you keep. Like a best friend that moved away or a classmate
you grew up with, there's just some things that make life
important...people you know are special...and you KEEP them close!
Author unknown
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