Pieces of You Project

  "Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content."   {Philippians 4:11}


I have boxes and boxes of their belongings.  Still.  A year and a half later.  When I cleaned out their house, it was so rushed and chaotic.  There were things my heart somehow knew not to let go of.  So those things went in boxes.  Left just the way I'd found them.  

Yesterday I was looking for a photograph of my dad from back in high school and I opened the motherlode of boxes.  Poems my dad wrote.  Old photographs.  Letters to my mom.  Photographs he'd taken in Paris.  Sermons he gave at our old church.  I didn't have time to go through all the stuff. I'll save that for another day.  But I opened up this little tin.  I don't know if he arranged things in it like this, or I did last spring when I emptied out his dresser drawers.  Either way, it made me gasp.  In it, his favorite pencils (the blue mechanical that I vividly remember from when I was very very young,  his old glasses, his "CHIP" key ring that he made (from his name, Chipman), his flashlight, a few of his "Chip Shop" business cards, his truck key, a key to his shop, a few small rocks, and this little slip of paper containing such a poignant scripture on it.  Treasures.

Mom and Dad are here. And I'm certainly thankful for that.  But still, this.  THIS.  It seems so frozen in time.  So..."him" summed up in a tiny 3x4 inch tin.   It's easy to just see them as Alzheimer's patients.  It's REALLY hard to see them as my parents.  It isn't fair to them. Actually, I know they would be so sad if they knew that.  Instead, I feel like I am a parent to them.  When I find treasures such as this one,  it reminds me that they were, in fact, very real.  Very human.  With interests, hobbies, heartbreaks, dreams.

So, I'm going to start a "Pieces of You" project as I continue to go through the boxes.  It will be on my own time, when I'm emotionally ready.  Somedays I am.  Others... not so much.