Throwing Out the Past

We save too much. We all do. As long as there is a place to store it, we keep it.

There are several categories of stuff we hold onto. Some stuff is saved because we might need it some day. Men, I think, are especially bad about keeping various nuts and bolts and screws; women are more into clothes and fabric, right?

We keep some things (and I agree with this) because they are occasionally useful. We spend years getting just the right tools or dishes, and though we don't use them regularly, at times they are just what we need.

Then there are the memories! We find ourselves holding onto children's crayon drawings, our marginally important certificates, newspapers with our names in them, Grandma's cook book. These are the most difficult things to sort through, or thin out, or throw out. They mark points in time. They are life event markers. They are physical representations of things written on our hearts.

In the Old Testament, people erected "standing stones" to mark places where significant historical events happened. When people would later happen upon these vertical rocks, they would search for someone who knew what event occurred at that location. The memory lived on.

That's similar to your grandchild asking, "Why do you keep this old, yellowed newspaper from 1971?" My grandma would reply, "To make little boys ask questions!"