Treasure Chest of Thoughts

My husband and I just finished watching Defiance, a movie about a group of Jews who resisted becoming victims of the Holocaust by living in the forest, by surviving, by fighting, by living.

Very inspiring movie.

Please consider renting this movie.   Thanks to Redbox, you can rent it for only a $1.  For that $1, you will receive an insight, a respect for those who desire to live, to stand for what they belief. 

This week I spent part of three days packing…two in my classroom and one day in my mother’s house.  I cannot say that I enjoyed anything about these days…until they were over.

In my classroom I had hoped to go through every piece of paper and recycle 99% of them.  Sorry!  I AM going green, but  I am also an annotator.  In time.  Just give me time.

Time was not to be my gift, though.  On Friday morning, I learned that my classroom had to be completely packed and ready to be moved out on Monday morning, so into the box every piece of paper went. 

Time is my gift.  Now my classroom will be refurbished to ensure the redesign of our 21st Century classrooms.  Early in the summer.  Time to work in my classroom. 

Time was not to be my gift in my mother’s house.  My siblings and I made the decision to move my mother into a “home” due to her advancing dementia.  My sister placed my mom’s house on the market…a little quicker than I was ready.  Thus, I spent a day…a very tiring day…sifting through years of history to determine which parts I would be honored to preserve.  Treasures, indeed.  The letters my dad wrote my mom before they married…what would have been 61 years ago yesterday (June 5).  My mom’s recipe box.  Her Bible.  Dishes.  Pictures.

Both of these “packing up” days represent my unwillingness to change, to keep some things they way they are.  To honor them, to preserve them.

I like to think, though, that I am on the “cutting edge” of change, of technology.  Surely this is symbolized by the additional two days this week:

• Monday:  Created my teacher web page on our school’s new website.  Cool!  Very student and parent friendly.
• Tomorrow:  I leave with five other ladies to attend a week of training using our new “mini” laptops.  Very cool!

This, then, is what I am.  The package.  Inside is a mix of the old and the new. 

I suspect that is what most of us are and were.  People like George Washington, Abraham Lincoln.  Yes, all the greats.

The package.  Packing up what we were.  You see, I felt such a sense of relief when those days of packing were over.  Maybe a sense of finality, but so much more a sense of peace, of accomplishment.  You know what comes next, right?  The unpacking.

Unpacking what we will become in the 21st Century.  Unpacking my dad’s letters, my mom’s recipes, and their many pictures into a book…what will be a gift to my siblings and other family members.  A preservation of the past for those in the future.