Survey #166 Response from Margaret
| Briefly describe who will benefit from your efforts to declutter and get organized, and how they’ll benefit. Think about members of your household, but also about the larger world—e.g., the people who’ll buy your stuff at a garage sale, the shelter residents who’ll get your donations, the next generation of family who’ll carry a lighter load, and so on. | Me, me, me! Husband and kids can see the memories treasures. |
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| Tell us about a memory of a person or incident from the formative years of your life that influenced your attitudes and emotions about belongings, clutter, organizing, or any related subject. (For example: “Grandma’s house was packed to the rafters with stuff.”) | Dad was always trying to save money. After my mother no longer kept house, he would save and reuse plastic take-out containers, plastic produce bags, plastic grocery bags, take-out plastic utensils, etc. When he was aging, one of my sisters and myself would visit every 3 months. We, siblings, had a pact that we would bring an extra empty suitcase and fill it with some of these hoarded items secretly (it was never missed because the remaining plastic bags would expand to fill the drawers). We also had a pact to accept whatever he wanted to give us even if we didn't really want it. On the way to the airport to fly home, I would swing by the recycling center and unload what I could. Sometimes I emptied my extra suitcase into garbage cans at the airport before boarding my flight. |
| What is the strongest memory to which you feel connected by way of an object, such as a souvenir, photo, or keepsake? | Working my way through my mending box earlier this week, I came across a smallish white towel, smallish meaning somewhere between a hand towel and a bath towel. I am restitching the hem so I can use it a little longer. This well-worn towel is a sentimental favorite of mine, although every time I see “Texas Children’s Hospital” woven into the gray band down its center, I have a tiny frisson of guilt that someone will think that I pilfered it. But I didn’t. I even protested a little when the nurse pressed it into my hands and insisted I take it all those years ago. It is the Christmas Eve when my son was in fifth grade, that final year of young childhood, that final year of being a homeroom parent, that final year of cupcakes in class on your kid’s birthday, that final year of Little League and Cub Scouts*, that final year of homemade Halloween costumes and unfeigned trick-or-treating, that final year of young motherhood. The living room is lit by the Christmas tree and our family of three are basking in the glow after opening presents. The “boys” – Dad and Son – are starting to rough-house, chasing each other around a heavy walnut desk chair. Face to face, Dad’s hands are on the arms of the chair and Son’s hands are on the back of the chair. Suddenly Dad lets go and the chair flips backward and cracks across Son’s right forearm. As time slowed, I see the pallor of shock swept cross Son’s face. Dad grabs the car keys and Son, I grab a blanket, and we are off to the emergency room. In a slight drizzle, we pull up under the portico of the ER entrance at Texas Children’s Hospital. The city streets had been quiet and nearly deserted, but here the lights blaze and all is a bustling efficiency. A wheelchair is rolled up; Son is unloaded and I follow. Exiting the car, I grab a “homeless meal packet” from the backseat floorboards and am prepared to spend hours at the ER. My eyes never leaving my son, I describe the accident to the ER personnel and it is decided that x-rays are in order. Son is put into a hospital bed and we wait for his turn in radiology. Sometime later, he is wheeled away and then brought back. I am told that his left arm is just fine. Whew. … Wait a minute - it is his right arm that was injured! Back to x-ray and, yes, his right forearm has a hairline fracture. A purple cast is applied and, when he has stabilized, we are told we can go home. Dad pulls up in the car, Son is loaded into my arms in the backseat and a nurse presses a white hospital towel into my hands so I can sop up Son’s dopey drool – “keep it” she insists. So this small towel, the memento of a Christmas Eve in Texas Children’s Hospital ER, is a reminder that I truly have been a real MoM. Next up in my memory mending box, the long-underwear with the split right sleeve** that Son wore that January to winter scout camp. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- * In truth, Son was already in Boy Scouts but a little literary artistic license enhances the telling of this tale. ** In reality, the sleeve of the long-underwear was sewn closed years ago and the long-underwear was given to the troop’s “uniform bank.” (I now sleep with this towel under my pillow.) |
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