Letters, pictures, notes and ..........junk.

Yes, you may all now officially call me "Mrs. P. Rat" (P is for Pack)!

In our moving of an entire household, which has not been moved since 1982, we have:
- loaded up the trailer and taken it to the dump with "junk"
- several green garbage bags of clothes plus everything that didn't get sold at the garage sale (which includes MANY beautiful stuffed animals, tennis rackets, two-story cat house...aaahhemmmmm, dishes, shoes, 78 RPM records, long playing records of the 60's and 70's, etc. etc. etc. etc.) has been taken to our friendly "Value Village"
- many items of furniture picked up by our two favorite Congolese friends

AND I'm still looking at an ocean of boxes and more green garbage bags to take to our new place.

I'm thinking another garage sale when we get there.

Every drawer contains a letter or a picture or a little note.

I sat. I read. I remembered. A letter from a dear friend, "L", going through difficult times and how appreciative she was to husband and I..........for being her friend....for listening to her and encouraging her through her dark days.

I know all of you have those letters. The ones that mean a great deal to you, so you keep them.

I will continue to keep mine. I will re-read them and be reminded how important it is to befriend people in need. I will keep them as a remembrance of wonderful friendships and how those friendships continue today. Some day, someone, most likely one of my children, will find these letters and they will read them too. They will be encouraged to continue to befriend those in need.

I found love letters from my father to my mother while he was in Europe during WWar II. He left Canada a few months after they were married. Mom found out she was pregnant after he left for the war, before they could talk together, intimately, about their very first child. How difficult it was to live without him sharing this marvelous event, without him knowing his first child until nearly 3 years later.

I sat. I read. I thought about the generations before me, what life may have been like. Difficult times. Lonely times. Stressful times. There were letters my grandmother had sent to her son, my dad, while he was in the war. What must it have been like for a mother in those days.

Pictures too. Every one with a memory....hundreds of them.

Notes from my granddaughter......"I love you Grammy" they all said. Notes from son and daughter and husband........"You're the best Mom ever!"....."You're the best Mommy in the whole wide universe, and I love you!"........"Lovingly always.....I love you Dear".............I keep them all.

The memories of the house will be packed up with me when I go. Too many to write......

I pray for God's presence this next week. Lots to do. So little time. The letters, pictures and notes are all packed away for another season of my life..........perhaps another place too...........

May God go with us.