Collector of Memories

It's quiet around here today. One daughter is out shopping (thank goodness she's feeling well today!), one is working at the county fair giving pony rides (a friend owns the business), and one is at the movies with her dad (a rare treat for her). So, it's just me and our dear Jeannie, a former guide dog-in-training, who was a bit too energetic to lead a blind person--safely, that is.

While organizing my 2005 albums, which really need to get off the floor of my scrapbooking room and onto a shelf, I came across this layout I did last summer. The photo shows a bookcase in our living room that is full of memory albums--all scrapbooked, none are the "old-fashioned" kind of albums which can eventually damage the photos. Our collection of albums keeps growing, but when the girls have places of their own, they are expected to take their albums with them.

Which leads me to what I've been thinking about. One of my main "jobs" ar0und here is to keep track of the memorabilia and photos which come into the house. I try to keep them organized until I have time to work with them, and then they are lovingly preserved with scrapbooking supplies, of which I have way more than I could ever use. But I digress. My thought is that each family should have one parent who is a "collector of memories." Children need this. They need to be able to have items which bring back sweet memories put in a safe place, so that they can look back at them and reflect on those good times. Photos, ticket stubs, prize ribbons, certificates, birthday cards...these are all things that can be priceless in later years.

A poet, I am definitely not, but I wrote a poem to accompany this layout:

The Memories of Our Lives
They collect in drawers
And in boxes on floors--
The memories of our lives.

For the memories get lost
In the corners and dust
Unless someone takes the time

To sort and record
The photos and thoughts
The people, events, and rhyme.

And God bless the soul
Who scrapbooks with love
The memories of our lives.