Going through my daughter’s room is like an archeological dig into the detritus of her childhood.
Here’s the tiny stuffed pink elephant that my husband bought at the hospital gift shop the day she was born, now faded and stained. Here’s the needlepoint string of geese that hung over her crib, handmade by her great grandmother. A few hours go by and I am digging into nursery school drawings, elementary school math sheets, middle school headbands. The high school stuff is overwhelming — photos, yearbooks, piles of letters, a tell tale cigarette lighter (likely not used for tobacco) and I’m still only half way through my daughter’s life in this house.
We plan a Face Time — she lives across the country — and as she sits with her own baby daughter nestled on her lap, I hold up posters, sweatshirts, two music boxes, and more, asking “Keep? Toss?” “Keep? Toss?” “Keep? Toss?”
Mind you, my daughter has already cleaned out her old room and so has her brother — at least twice. But that was just during their visits home, and we’ve lived in this house more than 30 years. The layers run deep.
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