something to remember...someone to remember...

i was layin' on my bedroom floor trying to
exercise. my heart wasn't in it...
more restin' than exercsin' today....
at one point i looked to my right, under
my bed.

ugh.

why is everything so dusty?!

i guess i gotta clean under there.
well, at least i don't have a lotta junk
under there...only a few things....

like that sewing box.

why on earth do i have a sewing box, anyway?
i never use it. don't sew.

and then i reached over and touched it.

and thought about how i got it.

when i was young, our vacation consisted of
three days back where my parents grew up
visiting relatives. every year.

i would go with my dad when he would visit
his aunts. so they were my great aunts. i'd
sit and listen to them talk.

my absolute favorite relative of all time was
my great aunt frances.

tiny little lady. shoot, she was like four feet
tall or something. her smile totally lit up
the room, the house, the street. i never saw
anyone light up a place like she did.

and she called my dad 'teddy.'
that right there cracked me up and made me love her.

she was widowed.
i always got the impression she was married to some
real ol' cranky guy. no one ever said that....but
she would apologize for stuff he had done.

i thought she deserved the best guy in the world.
and i always felt a little sad that she was alone.

once when i visited she had a little stuffed dog
you could wind up and it played music and the head
tilted. i sat with that dog the whole time my dad
and my aunt talked. i talked to the dog. wound it
up and it tilted its head and played music to me.

she gave it to me as we were leaving.
just like that. i think she had it for someone
else....but just gave it to me.

i think i still have the dog somewhere....

and then another year, she took her tiny self down
to her basement and brought up this yellow sewing kit
box. she wanted to give me something. and that's
the treasure she found.

i've kept it all these years.

when she gave me something, she made me feel special.
she made me feel like i counted.

it wasn't the giving something....it was the way
she did it.

i felt like she saw who i was.
i felt like she saw who i was and liked me.

what a gift to give someone.
you would think that gift would be given all the
time all over the place.

it's not.

and i have to wonder why sometimes.

she had a pretty sad ending in life.
one of my first encounters with life not being
fair...

but that love she gave me is still here.
i don't get fair and not fair.
i don't get life sometimes. i don' understand
so much of it.

but i would have to be blind not to see the power
of love given in small acts.

and that silly sewing box under my bed reminded
me this morning of all that we can offer the
world in such small ways.

something to remember.
and someone to remember...
remembering my aunt frances today.