“Will you take $10 for it?”

“I’d take $15”

We both hemmed and hawed.  We were discussing a 12 year old wicker chair. I had it priced at $20 in my first-ever yard sale event.

She liked it, and honestly I probably could have done $10 without any problem, except…Mom had bought it for us in our house in Canada just before Zach was born.

Mom and Dad had come out, entering the door arm-in-arm and singing “We’re the Doulas, We’re the Doulas…” and then proceeded to scrub that house clean, make meals and generally spoil Steve and I as we awaited our first child’s birth.
I’m trying very hard not to be so sentimental with everything we own. We have lots of “stuff”. We’re not necessarily materialistic, although I freely admit I like my gadgets…but for the most part we are not too hung up on stuff.

Except the things that are tied to people we love.

I have a plate rack sitting across from me that I received as a wedding gift from a woman Mom taught Bible Study Fellowship with, a woman who had always been kind to me. I use the pasta bowls my pastor’s wife gave us as a wedding gift. They are now 15 years old. So many things…

“I’ll have to chance it and come back tomorrow. I’ll probably end up buying it.”

“Sounds good.”

I’m not eager for it to go, but the fact is we don’t ever sit in it. It’s more for decoration….but it still carries meaning.

It is a little like what I wrote about the other day….how sounds and smells and sights can trigger our memories. So can stuff. Our things carry with them memories and meaning. Many of us live in houses that don’t carry much history and with things that don’t have as many stories…but I can walk through my parent’s place and touch the things that have been in our family for generations.

I like that.

I am learning to rest more in my spiritual “reality”…knowing that my home is not here, and thankful that my ultimate home will be a place without pain or sickness. And yet….while in this sojourn, it is good to know that we are anchored by the memories and the foundations of those to whom we are connected. Even their stuff. It brings us not just memories, but place and history…and that is good.

We’ll sell some of the things, and give some things away…but the plate rack will stay. And the wicker chair may just find its way back into Maddie’s room.