Friday, December 29, 2006

The Box

Well, I started on The Box this afternoon - this was after I had a huge lunch of Japanese food with my former neighbor Erica who happened to be in my new neighborhood. So, rather than be lazy and lethargic I thought I'd tackle The Box.

This is something I've dreaded for months. The Box is a large file box filled with pictures, letters, mementos which I compiled during the past year while cleaning out my mother's house. Part of the dread comes from the emotions that naturally overtake me as I go through all this stuff. One emotion is a feeling of being overwhelmed - there are so many items and every one is important, if not to me, to someone in the family. Another emotion is responsibility - as the keeper of these items I need to make sure they are taken care of, scanned, loaded into the database to share with everyone. Another emotion is sadness - when I see pictures of Mom in her heyday, or pictures of her with her siblings. And finally, the greatest emotion is love - I have a family heritage which goes back many generations and those before me have taken care to save items, to document them, and to pass them on.

So far, I've organized all the memorial cards which were given out at various funerals - I will be scanning these soon and placing them here.

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