An important list

My wife and her siblings have put in a lot of hours these past few months getting their mother’s (and their former) house ready to sell. For those who don’t know, Anne’s mom passed away last September. She’d lived in that home in northwestern Evanston for 40 years and was a saver so there was a lot to go through. They’ve come across many treasures, all kinds of odds and ends, and quite a few things they had completely forgotten about. So many emotions packed into so many boxes.

One of my favorites, though, is a little slip of paper that Anne came across. There’s no title on it, but it’s a list of events and dates that occurred in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Most of the events are fairly significant. A trip to Greece. A granddaughter is born. A tree is cut down. The boyfriend of her daughter asks for a blessing so he can propose (that would be me and the date was July 26, 1993). She also listed a couple of things that don’t seem too terribly important. November 1993 was the time that she got her dog’s teeth cleaned, for example. I don’t know why she chose the things she did to write down on this particular piece of paper, but it’s fascinating to see them next to each other. So many things make up our lives and when we sit down to think about them, we usually start with the major, life-changing events. We probably don’t list a big ash tree being cut down or taking a dog to the vet. But those everyday occurrences fill in the framework of our lives.