When Your Life Story Doesn’t Pack Up Neatly

The candles flickered on the coffee table in the evening light, their subtle ways bringing a warmth to the quiet living room. Familiar scents of  cotton and laundry  filled the air. Nearly 4 decades of favourites filled her ears with a playlist of memories as she quietly worked away. She was aware of his presence, though he was quiet.

The smell of crisp cardboard and the film of dust covering the laminate flooring pointed to the changes in store as she packed up each box before her. There was a quickness and intentionality behind each move, though she wasn’t aware of it. Productivity was the name of the game as she folded over each side and pulled out the black sharpie to label the box.

She stacked each box on top of the other, careful to ensure it was well balanced. The first one was the largest of all, stuffed to the brim, the second physically lighter to lift but the weight of it unbearable, the third box, medium sized as was the fourth. What a nice, neat stack she’d made. She smiled to herself and crawled on top of them. Perched at the top she swung her legs and imagined tomorrow, drinking deeply from her favourite deep, two hands needed, coffee mug. She could feel him smiling at her.

Out of the corner of her eye she noticed a florescent strip of plastic sticking out of the bottom, biggest box. How was that missed? Unthinkingly she bent to kick it back into the box with her slippered foot; the shift of her weight sending the boxes and herself sprawling. Brushing off her pant legs she jumped to her feet until she noticed the boxes, and their contents sprawled all over the floor.  The contents of each no longer neatly separated and contained by the cardboard walls surrounding them.

Slowly, she sat back down on the floor, surrounded by her memories, her story, iconized childhood, university years, wedding and babies. Immediately she rushed to begin packing them back up, sorting, organizing, cataloguing. But there was his gentle whisper. “Be still.” She struggled to hold back the emotion that dared to escape in hot tears down her cheeks.

How she longed to go back to some of the sweet innocence of her childhood but erase the painful moments. How she celebrated the struggle of her ‘becoming’, in university but wished it could have happened in ways that weren’t quite so messy. How she cherished the days of young love and dreams together and longed to steal them back again. How those hazy, exhausting days of new babies, soft skin, warm heads nestled in her arm, under her chin, left her grasping empty air for just a minute more.

Each box had had it’s own joys and sorrows, laughter and tears. Each box had been packed up, stacked, one on top of the other. But tonight the Fisher Price “Somewhere over the Rainbow” windup toy from her childhood not only sat next to her peekaboo Smurf and favourite Golden Book but they had landed on her university days journal with movie stubs and special napkins sprouting out the side. The Calligraphy set and notices of essay prizes and love letters now mixed beside crocheted baby bonnets, first locks of hair, and tiny imprinted hands in plaster of paris. Pew markers, table settings and dried flowers lay next to her old limp teddy bear gifted to her the day of her birth and drug all over creation for years following.

His whisper was clear. “It is all you. All of it, together. You must know you for this next step in the journey.  Trust me, sit with me and know yourself.”

“But I’m afraid.”

“You know I am the comforter, let me show you comfort.  You know I am joy, let me be your joy. You know I am kind and just, let me show you kindness, let me be your defender. You know I am your creator and hope, let me show you the way.”

And so quietly, courageously, she was still, even in the middle of it all, allowing him to piece together her story.

2 Corinthians 1:3-5; Nehemiah 8:10; Romans 2:4-6; Psalm 25:4-6; Psalm 46:10