Storage

I finally made it up the two flights of stairs to the queen mum’s storage space. Four big boxes and a small suitcase, not bad I think. Wrong. What do we keep in storage? All those mementos that we just can’t seem to let go of, the important papers, pictures, letters, cards, tapes, history. I carried them down the fourteen steps slowly as I don’t feel grounded and falling, tripping,stumbling would not surprise me.
I’ve been trying to stay “in the moment.” Trying not to think too long or hard about what happened that last month but I don’t find it easy. Trying to remember to eat, brush teeth, smile, relax, breathe while inside I’m cowering in the corner. So today it was the boxes from storage that brought the tears and the pain in my heart to the front. Boxes full of memories, most wonderful, some grab my soul sad. She had saved every piece of paper that had anything to do with my brother Sean’s death. Her husband Capt. Rolly had saved drawings from my nieces when they still drew Birthday cards, such a sweet, sentimental thing to do. Family pictures, b&w photos of relatives I never knew, every card I’ve ever sent them. Their life now in a box to be thrown away.