Cleaning Out The Clutter...Rewritten

I started thinking about it yesterday when the inspector was inspecting our house for the buyer to make sure that everything worked properly before they purchased it.  He looked in every crook and cranny. He opened every door, window, went on the roof and in the attic. It was thorough. He told me it would feel invasive and he wasn't kidding. As he inspected the house, I started sorting through years and years of saved stuff. Moving is a huge deal. As I had seen the professionals do, I kept three boxes close by; a box for things I wanted to keep, a box of definite get rid of (I wondered why I still had them), and a lot of maybes. We decided that we would sell our furniture so that we wouldn't have to store anything.  It would just be easier that way. As I took inventory of what to keep and what to get rid of, I found some pearls of great price. There were a couple of treasures that I couldn't part with.  One was the chair that I had kept from the house I grew up in. This heirloom was my mothers favorite chair in our house. She curled up in it in pajamas early every morning before sunrise with a cup of coffee and her bible in hand as she had her devotion by the big picture window in the living room, It was her prayer closet, where she prayed for her family. I'm sure of it. I spotted another piece of furniture as I looked across my bedroom. There stood my old hope chest at the foot of my bed. Mama and daddy got it for me when I was 16 years old.  Growing up I didn't really put that much in it; some stainless steel pots and pans that mama and daddy bought for me from a man selling them at the school where mama taught and daddy was principal, my cap and gown from high school and my diploma. I even put the pink baby dress that had been mine when I was a baby and some little white shoes in it.  Since I left home it had been nothing more than a cedar chest to store my winter clothes in and I hadn't thought about it for a very long time. Even if it had been in my life for 43 years.  Looking at it now, it somehow became a precious piece of furniture. It was definitely a keeper. My first thought was, I'll just give it to my granddaughter. I even explained to my granddaughter that I was going to give her a hope chest. She questioned, "What is a a hope chest?" We had a small history lesson about the cedar chest.  I told her how the Pilgrims came to America from England bringing their valuables in a chest made of cedar. They made these chest and used cedar because it was a good, plentiful, wood and would keep bugs out. Later the cedar chest became known as a "hope chest." I think I enjoyed sharing the information with her much more then she enjoyed hearing about it. A few days later, I felt a tender tug at my heartstrings that I should give it to my daughter, not my granddaughter. This caused a floodgate of memories to come rushing back to the years when my daughter was growing up and I was much younger. My husband and I had been married for three years and I was 22 years old. I wish that those times could have been happier times but they weren't. I was never really able to express to my daughter how special and loved that she was. I guess I didn't feel special either.  I was too focused on myself.  For most of my daughters life we have had conflict and have blamed each other for way too many things. Being prompted to do so, I called my daughter on the phone and asked her did she want my old hope chest. The first thing she said was, "Why are you giving it to me are you fixing to die?" I laughed and said, "Well, you never know but I want you to have it." I could hear a twinkle in her voice as she said, "Yes, I want it." After all these years I think that she felt that she was special to me. As I continued to go through my things, I uncovered a book that I bought for her in June of 1995, entitled "To My Daughter With Love." She was 16 years old. I had written in it some but good intentions gave way to the cares of life and I put it on the back burner. There it has been for 21 years. Upon finding it, I realized that God was really up to something. It was time to brush the dust off of it and begin once again. The book was written in three parts. The first part, about my mother, the middle part about myself, and ended with a section about my daughter.  In preparation to write about my mother, I spent hours talking to her about things in her past. Some things I could recollect and others I heard for the first time. In these hours I spent with her, I was very cognizant that it was all part of our journey to restore our relationship. Just like her old chair that I saved from our family home, we needed a fresh, new appreciation for one another. It was a time for us to reconnect in a way that we had not done in a very long time. To get to know each other as adults. Spending this precious time with my 85 year old mother was more important to me than all the hurts and disappointments of the past.  I realized that some of the same feelings that my daughter had toward me, I had toward my mother. Like all daughters, we just want to be special to our moms and for them to look at us the way that only a mother and daughter can look at each other; with admiration in their eye.  I'm sure my mom wanted that too. As I continued beyond the pages about my mother to the pages about me, I realized I wasn't the same person that I was 21 years ago. There had been a lot of water under the bridge in that length of time. It was hard to write.  Difficult to write about a person that I didn't know anymore. It was kinda funny in a way though. I think that my procrastination was a good thing this time. God used my bad habit to tell this story in retrospect. He has a good sense of humor like that.  I could now tell our story from a viewpoint of  newfound love for my mother and daughter. I am so thankful that I can give this timeless gift to my daughter. And she can give it to her daughter. My beautiful granddaughter. Our story of redemption. Not only in a chair or the pages of a book, but in our hearts...our legacy will live on forever.