Naive Perspective

This last year has taken a toll not only on my body, but also on my mind.  In sitting around in pain, I think what is important to me, what can I live without, what can I leave behind.  I sort of started with the basics because that was the thing that was most evident.  Is it really necessary to clean that room this weekend?  Is it really necessary to take that trip?  Do I really want to do that activity when I can make more memories doing this?  I got a quick jolt of this during this last weekend's events. 

This year has been one of the worst dry years we have had.  Anything could ignite a fire because everywhere there is dry grass and dry weeds.  This state has had many fires from small ones to extreme large ones. 

In the middle of a visit from my daughters and their kids this Saturday, we were just having lunch and we looked up and noticed there was smoke across the lake in the brush.  So we sat there for a minute and watched the smoke turn into a full on forest fire. 

After talking with my husband he said "oh that fire won't get out of control, they will have it put it out before it reaches us."  Well when the flames started getting higher and higher I soon realized that it was better to be prepared than sorry.  I had to quickly analyze what was important to me to pack up and get out.  So I jumped up and started hauling things out to the car.  With the great help of daughters and an hour later most of the car was packed with only my memories.  All my photos and journals, were put safe in a car that I could drive off.  I thought how do these people do it when they only have 5 min.

Somewhere in the act of  the three of us flying all over the house, my grandboys said grandma we need to get the baby pictures out of the house.  Well the baby photos can be reproduced by their moms, but I saw in their eyes this great concern that their memories would be wiped out by the fire as well. 

The last thing to get in my car was a Russian stacking doll that I had received from a friend a couple years back.  My grandson came up to me and said "you can't forget this," it is his favorite toy.  I soon realized that it wasn't just my memories that I was concerned about it was the good memories that my grandkids would lose if the fire came close. 

My daughter the next day was relaying memories that she had at her grandparents house, of the good things that each grandmother made for food or the things she remembers of her grandfathers.  She asked "mom what do you think my kids will remember after you have passed."  She started relaying the waffles and berry syrup that I make every time my grandkids show up at the house or the Jacuzzi that my husband lets the kids get into on every visit. 

In thinking of the day before, I thought the reason why three women were running through the house was to save the memories I would cry over if I lost them in a fire. The memories weren't just for me, but the memories I could pass onto my kids and to their kids.  That the Russian doll would be replaced by a photo or a journal of their grandmother that made them waffles and berry syrup. Grandkids always put it in perspective.