remnants

A stuffed lamb hangs from the doorway that separates our kitchen from our dining room.  A gift from Granny Smith (wouldn't it be so great if we just called her Apple?), there are knobs on it's back to make it sound like singing whales, a mother's heartbeat, ocean waves, or rain.  Cassidy always preferred the whales.  This lone lamb signifies a time in her life when mobiles and hanging things were all the rave, which this family took to a whole new level.


I started sewing birds (I can hardly remember what it felt like to actually have time to sew!), and pretty soon they were hanging from the ceiling and light fixtures.  My husband upped the ante when he added stuffed animals and wind chimes.  We would blow or push on the elaborate menage, and Cassidy would squeal and coo.

Pretty soon it was not just for Cassidy's entertainment.  It became a great source of amusement for my husband and I.  Without ever speaking of it, when the other wasn't around, bits would be added for the other to discover.  Forks, socks, the scotch tape dispenser, sunglasses, it was all fair game.  It got to a point where I think Cassidy's parents enjoyed it more than she did.


Alas, everything has it's time, and there's a time to let go.  Cassidy started crawling and really didn't give a hoot what was hanging anymore, so piece by piece, the hanging things were disassembled.  Now the lamb is the only remnant left.


I was thinking about this a few weeks ago when I got on a spring cleaning binge.  I bagged up old sheets and bedcovers we haven't used in far too long to justify storing them.  I got rid of shoes and sweaters that I just might have worn again one day, but never did.  I tidied the knick knacks and stuff that collects on top of book cases and other level surfaces, where I had to confront the painted pot that used to belong to my dad, and held a stack of sympathy cards for the last year and a half that I just left there, dusting around once in awhile.


I don't hold on to occasion cards.  I display them for a reasonable time, and then they're tossed.  Our house is too small to save every trinket and paper memory.  The chances of me wondering who sent me cards on my 40th birthday are slim to none.  Although Cassidy has given me a new appreciation of greeting cards.  She was fascinated with the artwork on the birthday cards she received, and can be pretty transfixed over art work in general.  She has always noticed what hangs on our walls, and takes notice of what hangs on walls wherever we go.  She's particularly fond of flowers and birds.


I finally went through the sympathy cards again that I'd gotten after my father died.  These occasion cards were the exception, though I knew eventually that I would get rid of them, too.  Some had a paragraph of a specific memory shared, and those I put in a separate pile to keep for another little while.  The rest I went through and chose the ones with the most compelling artwork, and wouldn't you know, sympathy cards are full of flowers and birds.


I put them in one of baskets in Cassidy's playroom with her books.  Cassidy discovered and pored over them, studying the pictures, then tossing them on the floor.  When I tidy the room, I put them back in her basket to look at again, later.  Sometimes she carries them around with her and I find one on the floor of another room.  They feel like paper bits of love.  I know one day they will be tattered and worn and maybe even chewed on and I will get rid of those, too.  But for now, I like having the remnants around.