Sad Little Good Memories

Today we got a new refrigerator, which put me in a very sad mood. We have a refrigerator and separate freezer in the bonus room, and they are old energy hogs, so we decided to replace the two of them with the one that’s in our kitchen, and replace that one with a new one.

The delivery guys showed up. One looked like a 98-pound weakling. Almost like a little kid. I asked him, “Are you going to use a dolly to take the old one out to the bonus room?” and he said, “No, we’ll just pick it up and carry it.”

He looked like it would be a struggle for him to pick up a glass of iced tea. They were connected with a harness they put over their shoulders and passed it under the refrigerator. The best way I can describe it is like they were the ends of a big, fat, saggy tightrope, and the refrigerator was balanced on it between them. The lifted the thing right off the floor without even grunting and walked right out the door. Pretty fascinating!

Once I had moved all the food into the new refrigerator, I went out to the bonus room to transfer everything and tidy up. I don’t go out there much anymore. It’s my daughter’s lair. I swoop in with a vacuum on occasion, so I only look at the carpet. Today as I was rearranging the space, I started noticing things that I hadn’t “seen” in a long, long time.

I noticed my son’s snowboard and remembered how my son, daughter, and I used to go up to Skibowl on Fridays when they had cheap night skiing so we could learn to ski. My husband is a good skier, but I learned at the same time my kids did. My daughter was only five years old and had this neon pink one-piece ski suit. Both kids were fearless and zoomed down the hill with me trying to catch up between falls. They looked like cartoons of speeding streaks while I had skis and poles flying through the air. We would ski until 11:00 at night under sparkling stars, freezing on the slow lifts but having too much fun to go inside.

I saw the skateboard and remembered getting up at 4 am and going to the skate park with my son and six of his friends. That early, they had the whole place to themselves. My daughter and I would roam around the adjacent pastures with the dog and go get French toast sticks at Burger King for everyone. That was before I quit eating there because of their tacky commercials.

I saw my son’s lacrosse stick and remembered tossing that forty pound ball with him, worried that it would miss the tiny little net in my stick and knock me out cold.

I saw the boogie boards and remembered going camping at the beach and playing with the kids in the ice-cold Pacific ocean. We would go in an inch at a time and let that part of us get numb before going a little further. The legs weren’t so bad, but when the water got to my waistline it was SO cold on my back. I didn’t want to go any further so they’d splash me until I was wet enough I might as well dive under the waves.

I looked at my son’s drum set and guitar and remembered the garage band practices and how the walls in the house literally shook from the loud vibrations. I saw the wooden blocks that they used to build roadways and ramps. I noticed the two big bins of Legos and remembered the castles and spaceships they worked hours building, and stepping on those tiny pieces barefoot and silently cursing Legos everywhere.

I saw an old blanket and remembered how they’d gathered every blanket in the house and build elaborate multi-roomed forts, and how they’d make me crawl down on the floor and go inside.

Holy crap, it was a tidal wave of memories that knocked me down and left little streams of water rolling down my cheeks. Even as I’m typing this, another wave is washing over me.

What happened to those fun little people? They used to always be right by my side. We had new adventures every day – building obstacle courses, doing cartwheels in the back yard, playing hide and seek. They disappeared and left their memories to collect dust in the bonus room as thick as the dust under the old refrigerator.

If you are still with me through this soulful trip down memory lane, I can only say that this one little day of boo-hooing is a very small price to pay for years and years of great memories. My kids may not give me the time of day now, but not so long ago like little planets and I was the light of their lives. My life revolved around them as they revolved around me. Excuse me, it is midnight and I hear a car door slam. Let me DROP EVERYTHING and greet my baby girl who’s all grown up….sigh….