The promised morning sunshine lingered momentarily then scudding clouds crossed the yellowing rays to turn the sky gray, threateningly glum, a day to deal with. The carton, so long left in the corner of the closet seemed to whisper, to plead with me, ‘It’s time. Time you opened me, looked inside of me again.’ Reluctantly, but purposefully, I pulled it out, tore off its binding tape and began to cry with the sky.
Memories flooded the rest of the day, forming a leaky Hoover dam down my cheeks. Stacks of birthday cards-received with wide smiles, letters to and from family, friends, rambling writing, thoughts preserved, ran the gamut of time. Some of the words were childishly done, haste clearly visible in others, despair and longing in most. Pictures told stories, images brightened for a moment and faded, just as the photos had. Unrecorded dates swirled questions marks. I aged while my children grew younger and younger. So many still in my heart, still in my carton, still and forever in the earth. Curtains opened. Curtains closed. Time flew backward faster than forward. The pace and my pulse quickened.
A now and then smile kept me turning, shuffling, wanting, yet hoping, not to reach the bottom of my self-imposed task. At last it was done and I began putting everything back the way it was–--
everything except my twisted, ragged Kleenex and my feelings
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