TOYS IN THE ATTIC

TOYS IN THE ATTIC

Mee-Maw and Pop-Pop were killed in a horrible car crash. I was extremely close to them, taking their deaths very, very hard. For months after they died my mother, brother and myself could not enter their home. We couldn’t even drive on the street in which they lived.

After about a year, I summoned up the strength to enter this house filled with so many memories. I feared all the bad things that could happen to the house until someone intervened, deserted as it was for all those months.

When I finally garnered the courage to go in, everything looked pretty much the way I imagined it. My mother and brother still could not accompany me.  Good memories came flooding back into my mind. My emotions got the better of me and I broke down in tears.

When I finally got it together, I spent many days going through all their possessions. Almost everything I touched brought a ton of emotions. I had all I could do to keep all in check. Most of the time I continued with tears in my eyes.

I decided to keep those items that they would want me to have. The rest I donated to charity.

The truck from Habitat for Humanity finished removing everything and drove away. I had to get out of there as soon as I could.

I started locking up, but realized that I had never checked the attic. So, again, I garnered whatever courage I had left and ascended the stairs that led up there.

I found a life time of items my grandparents had collected and stored there over the years. I carefully examined each and every piece of memorabilia and sorted them as I had downstairs.

The last pile contained a bunch of toys, mine and my brother’s. Each toy conjured up further pleasant memories of our youth. I kept most of them and lovingly cataloged each one.

The last piece I found was my precious sled, a Flexible Flier that provided me and my brother many years of pleasure.

At the last second, I noticed it. I had forgotten that I carved a name on one of the slats.

“Rosebud”!