18th July 2015 –
Today we went to help a friend who was clearing-out her family home, the house that she and her siblings had grown up in. Nothing had ever been thrown away. Every bill and receipt had been filed, every letter received tied into bundles. There was a drawer for pens that had ceased to write and pencil stubs too short to hold. Clothes from many seasons past lined shelves in the attic, glass jars filled cupboards in the garage. Old jigsaw puzzles, which were last played with fifty or sixty years ago, had been carefully stored in bags complete with a hand-written note of what they were – and how many pieces were missing! “Noddy and Big Ears, two pieces missing”, “Goldilocks, one piece missing”, “Red Riding Hood, complete”. What an extraordinary dedication to the memory of childhood.
