Cardboard Boxes
The garage sale had been a bust. It hadn’t seemd to matter though. Friends had gathered with ice tea and soda’s to visit and enjoy the hot summer’s day. Lila was just saying good bye to the last of her ‘volunteers’. She could hear them still chatting as they walked down the alley. The summer afternoon was still and quiet. She sure hadn’t made any money, but would cherish this day. Lila was moving out of her small neighbourhood. She was taking a leap of faith that this move would be the right one. There had been so much happen in the intervening years. Putting away her grandmother’s jewelry box, and her grandfather’s toolbox; her dad’s pocket watch and her mother’s table cloths, her memories gently exposed themselves. Lila’s life had not been completely gentle though. “Your life is as interesting as watching the grass grow.” One of her friends had made that comment to her, comparing her own life to Lila’s life. Closing the lids on the cardboard boxes was like closing lids on the parts of her life that she had never shared with her friends. All her family secrets were behind cardboard. Cardboard that would protect them all - as long as they weren’t jostled too hard, or damaged in any way. Planning this move, organizing the several garage sales had been hard work. But not as hard as the work Lila had done to get her life back in balance. Now when she looked at family things she could see the happy family that once was. Those were the things that she kept. The ones that she gave away were the ones that needed a new home. New homes to be imbued with happier memories. The sun was almost gone. Lila pulled the garage door shut on all that remained from the garage sale.
“Memory is a complicated thing, a relative to truth, but not its twin.”
~ Barbara Kingsolver
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