Unintended Treasures
My purse is an unorganized, seemingly bottomless pit of knick-knacks, lotions, cosmetics, keys and coins. Everything in this ridiculously bloated but fashionable bag could easily be replaced, including the plastic pink light-up pig keychain and maxed out credit cards. Everything that is, except the small dog-eared papers, carefully folded and tucked into a side pocket of my wallet.
Friends and coworkers pull out their checkbooks to complete a transaction at the local coffee shop to reveal sleeve after sleeve of family photographs. Snapshots of toothless toddlers and youngsters in soccer and little league garb. Formal shots of awkward teens in shiny, stretch gowns and coordinating tuxedos are lined up carefully, chronologically, so they can be displayed like a human flip book.
My own wallet, in comparison, contains a rather sparse collection of photographs. There’s the picture of the boys sitting on the Easter Bunny’s lap, wearing rabbit-ear hats and crying, and then there’s the typical, one knee down on the turf, football photos. I don’t have an adversity to pictures. Both of my boys, not just the first born, have completed baby books. I also have an assortment of albums featuring exotic family vacations, ski trips and football careers, spanning peewee through college.
But, those tiny papers, they can’t be produced in multiples like photographs. There’s the check from a child’s play checkbook. It was torn out and made out to me; his mother, Barbara. Only he was quite young, and his spelling skills hadn’t matured yet. In his best printed penmanship, my first born wrote, “To Bardra” underneath he wrote, “For the love.”
Another of my treasures is a tiny gold gift card. I’d forgotten long ago what the gift was that it had been attached to or the occasion for which it had been offered, only that it was a gift my husband presented me with shortly after I became his wife. On the card he had written in his beautiful script, “To my wife, with all my love, your husband.” Underneath this inscription, he drew an intertwined B and K; our initials.
Another gift card as treasured as the gift to which it was originally attached, is covered in hand drawn asymmetrical hearts and arrows of alternating sizes. My youngest, wrote in the center of this card, “Happy Easter, It’s nothing, but it will be something to you. Don’t forget, I will always love you.”
I doubt that my family foresaw the treasure potential in these offerings. Somehow, it makes them even more special. I carry my treasures with me as proof of my fortuity.
My purse is an unorganized, seemingly bottomless pit of knick-knacks, lotions, cosmetics, keys and coins. Everything in this ridiculously bloated but fashionable bag could easily be replaced, including the plastic pink light-up pig keychain and maxed out credit cards. Everything that is, except the small dog-eared papers, carefully folded and tucked into a side pocket of my wallet.
Friends and coworkers pull out their checkbooks to complete a transaction at the local coffee shop to reveal sleeve after sleeve of family photographs. Snapshots of toothless toddlers and youngsters in soccer and little league garb. Formal shots of awkward teens in shiny, stretch gowns and coordinating tuxedos are lined up carefully, chronologically, so they can be displayed like a human flip book.
My own wallet, in comparison, contains a rather sparse collection of photographs. There’s the picture of the boys sitting on the Easter Bunny’s lap, wearing rabbit-ear hats and crying, and then there’s the typical, one knee down on the turf, football photos. I don’t have an adversity to pictures. Both of my boys, not just the first born, have completed baby books. I also have an assortment of albums featuring exotic family vacations, ski trips and football careers, spanning peewee through college.
But, those tiny papers, they can’t be produced in multiples like photographs. There’s the check from a child’s play checkbook. It was torn out and made out to me; his mother, Barbara. Only he was quite young, and his spelling skills hadn’t matured yet. In his best printed penmanship, my first born wrote, “To Bardra” underneath he wrote, “For the love.”
Another of my treasures is a tiny gold gift card. I’d forgotten long ago what the gift was that it had been attached to or the occasion for which it had been offered, only that it was a gift my husband presented me with shortly after I became his wife. On the card he had written in his beautiful script, “To my wife, with all my love, your husband.” Underneath this inscription, he drew an intertwined B and K; our initials.
Another gift card as treasured as the gift to which it was originally attached, is covered in hand drawn asymmetrical hearts and arrows of alternating sizes. My youngest, wrote in the center of this card, “Happy Easter, It’s nothing, but it will be something to you. Don’t forget, I will always love you.”
I doubt that my family foresaw the treasure potential in these offerings. Somehow, it makes them even more special. I carry my treasures with me as proof of my fortuity.
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