A Box Full of Joy….

I was looking in the closet today. I vaguely remember some pictures that I have—somewhere—and I wanted to look at them again. But I couldn’t find them. I have boxes full of pictures. You know, those green “marble”cardboard boxes you buy at the office supply store? They come with tabbed dividers and I have attempted to group pictures behind appropriate tabs.

Well, sorta. Theoretically, if I look at the photos and then put them back where they were, they are organized. If I put them back in the box just anywhere, well, they were organized at one time. I guess I get credit for trying. I looked through all those boxes already and couldn’t find the pictures I wanted to see.

So this afternoon, after work, I took a journey through the top shelf of the closet in the master bedroom. Notice I didn’t say “the top shelf of my closet”? I live alone: every closet in the house is MY closet! But the one in the master bedroom was the most likely candidate for finding photos. Only because the closet in the bedroom I use as an office was just recently reorganized so I know what is in it, and the closet in the guest bedroom is full of Christmas….

I love boxes. I have lots of them in all shapes and sizes. Two things they all have in common: they are pretty, with colorful designs, and they are stuffed full of, well, stuff! Today I found every post card my daddy ever sent to me, some of my kids’ report cards, wedding invitations, and pictures of people I don’t remember ever seeing before. I mean, I don’t remember the people OR the picture.

Such discoveries beg the question: why? Why do I keep the wedding invitation from a couple who are now divorced? Why do I still have my kids’ report cards? Well, I know the answer to that one: I offered them to the kids and they collectively said “no thank you” and so, I am stuck with them. I cannot bring myself to throw away report cards.

I sat for the longest time, reading the postcards again. They tell so many tales. Where my daddy traveled, who he was with, what they did and more. Over the course of time, my name changed, my address changed, and my family changed. Daddy wrote postcards from all over the world and I moved all over Podunk.

There are postcards from trips with my mother, then solo trips, then trips with my stepmother. Trips to exotic places, tourist traps, historical sites, and romantic, idyllic locations. All the postcards have one thing in common: they are from my daddy and he loved me. He never forgot to say it, either. Even though I was grown up, married, with three children, and then divorced, I was still his little girl. And he loved me.

And the pictures I found brought a couple hours’ worth of smiles to me. I found a picture of me when I was about two, sitting on my tricycle in our backyard, wearing nothing but my big girl panties. My hair is in braids with bows in them, and my chubby arm is folded demurely across my chest. And, as I always did, I am smiling for the camera. It was my mother who was the family photographer and I didn’t mind smiling for her at all.

I found lots and lots of other pictures that are special, too. Many of them were taken in the house that I grew up in and still live in. Or rather, I live here again, after a 31-year journey through other homes in Podunk. I moved back in after my daddy died. It is fun to compare “then” and “now” and see how much things have changed.

And how much they have stayed the same.

As I looked at the pictures, I remembered the circumstances, or the event, or pieces of it, and I realized that I need to write those things down for my children. Someday they will be going through the same boxes, maybe still in the same closet, and I won’t be here to tell them the stories. I want them to understand the joy that I felt when I looked through those boxes this afternoon.

Guess I’d better do it soon….