Remembering

Recently I was helping a friend prepare to make an overseas move. My friend, with her four young children, needed some support sorting through the last five years of her life. I found myself sorting through private spaces--closets with grocery bags full of random pieces of a puzzle, receipts, small legos, drawers full of baby clothes she longs to keep because the fabric still holds the shape of her babies. Closets, bags next to a bed, a catch-all basket in the kitchen full of papers, handwritten scribbles, bank statements--these are places we rarely visit. We might catch a glimpe of them when we stop for tea and a chat, but rarely do we sort through someone else's life. What seems like junk to one is another's treasure. What seems like a scribble is a love note.

It is like a death, really, to loose another friend to relocation. And to sort through my friend's stacks and bags and baskets, making decisions of what to keep, what to pass along, and what to throw away, reminded me of what I have only witnessed when someone actually dies. Someone else sorts your life. Someone else remembers for you.

And while I was remembering for her, walking with her through the mess of transition, I came upon a scribbled note that read:

grocery store
plane tickets
play with children

and I stopped all my practical fast-moving movements, my quick sorting found the only treasure worth pausing to really read. A father wanting to remember to play with his children so much that he put it on his to do list.

Another scribble, another love note, another treasure to remember.