The Things They Leave Behind...

There is a LARGE Baby Grand Piano sitting in my small living room. Bookshelves filled with books for kids sized infant to adulthood are in our guest room and a custom made doll house waits for a child's small hands to come back and play. These are the things that have been left behind from a childhood. They were actually left in other houses that we lived in over the years. I've just kept lugging them with me, the faithful 'keeper of the stuff' they left behind, wherever I've moved to, just in case. In case of what ? you might ask me. Oh, just in case they might want them when they have a home, or maybe they might want them for their children someday. The truth is, it's our history, and I am a keeper of history. A history I cannot release my grip on. It was an era of the most favorite time of my life. 

I have friends whose homes I visit and I see their Mommy history there. A G.I.JOE action figure dangles from the chain to a light over my friends dining table. Her son is now in his twenties, but G.I. Joe remains, as though he just climbed up there yesterday. Just last week, two separate friends told me that they have all of their kids things in storage bins in their sheds. Boxes, books, child sized chairs, toddler toys, self portraits, the list is endless, but what you can't see is what we see when we look at those things. The small boy who climbed the dining room chair to affix his army man to that light fixture. A toddler boy who carried that stack of  field guides aka; "bug books" under his chubby little arm everywhere he went. A wild haired little brunette who sat in front of her custom made doll house, playing with her tiny mouse family who lived in there. A little blonde haired wonder who sat in that wee chair and made me pictures by the hour at that tiny table. These are our Mommy memories, and sometimes it's hard to let go of the physical manifestations of them. Maybe we didn't want it to end. So don't be too hard on us "keepers of the stuff".

Who knows ?  Maybe my son will need that piano some day.  

This 'left behind' item was from my son's   teenage years. I'm not sure I want to know the story behind it. It guards the little shed out back.