Inspired by numerous articles on de-cluttering (see the stacks of magazines in our powder room), I had convinced my husband that we should simplify our lives, one drawer at a time. First up, the kitchen junk drawer.
"How about this crazy spoon?" asked my husband, separating a small plastic
spoon from a tangle of odds and ends. "Should I pitch it?" Lifting his arm,
he took aim at our trash can.
"No," I said, as I grabbed the spoon out of his hand. "I want to keep it."
He gave me that familiar "I just don't get it” look, shrugged, and said,
"Be right back--I want to check the score." He headed for the family room and TV.
I was being irrational. The purple spoon, its handle curled like a pig's tail, was no collectible. It was a cereal box giveaway, in fact. But looking at it brought me instantly back to a specific time and place in my life. My daughters, now 19 and 21 years old, were then two and four. We were standing, about to say goodbye, in my late parents’ sunny kitchen. I had cleared away the fast food wrappers from our weekly “fries and company” lunch, and the kitchen looked more its spic-and-span self.
"Before you go," said Mom, "I've a surprise for the girls. I had to wait 'till
we got two, of course --good thing your father and I like that cereal." As
she held out the spoons to the girls, her left hand began to shake. She took a deep breath and seemed to will the hand to steady itself. A year later, her worsening Parkinson's disease would force her to leave her kitchen and home behind for a nursing facility.
"Thanks, Mom-Mom,” said my older daughter, “I get the purple one!” With
a furtive look at her sister, she added, "She likes pink anyway." That was
true: As she clutched her new treasure by its curly handle, my younger daughter was beaming.
I think we all were.
Just a moment, really, in a lifetime of examples of how my mother enjoyed giving to others, with a sense of fun that had her cut countless pieces of buttered toast into sailing ships and half moons when her own five kids were small. Surely, I didn't need a bit of purple plastic to remember that. I should be sensible and toss it.
But I couldn't. The things we keep--and the memories they trigger--exert a grip beyond logic on us. I started digging through the drawer again: The girls are due back from college soon for summer break. If I find the spoon's pink companion, maybe one morning I can sweeten my daughters’ cold cereal with some warm memories.
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