THIS FLOOD GETS AN “F”, BUT GRATITUDE GETS AN “A”
Day 3 (or is it Day 21?) of cleaning out Mom’s house after the flood. It seems as if we’ve been doing this for a while now. The majority of the pile that was in the house is now outside of the house, and the pile of stuff that is salvageable is the smallest of all.
Mom is a lesson in acceptance and resilience. She gets up, has coffee and toast, puts on her rubber boots and is ready to tackle it another day.
There were still so many of my childhood things at Mom’s house. Report cards and drawings from elementary school, and toys that I cherished as a child. There was odd comfort in knowing that I could go back and look at them if I wanted, letting good memories triggered by them to flow. My parents were two of the keepers of my history. I find now that I am saying peaceful good-byes to these items, knowing that their season was vital then, and has passed now. I was ready to let them go, and what’s in their place is profound gratitude for the love that put them there in the first place.