Your Most Precious Possessions, One Shelf Limit                                                                  

Genesis 1:1   In the Beginning…

           

            My Kindergarten class picture, there’s old Mrs. Krumpman.  Oh, the thin girl in the front row. I remember her, how sad, she died in third grade.  Something to do with her kidneys as I recall; she was so young; what a shame.

Numbers 11:27   And there ran a young man…

Once again my fingers touch what remains of a pink carnation pressed between sheets of wax paper.  I wonder what’s worse for ware, the carnation, the wax paper, or me?  That’s easy, me.  I sure looked good with that pink carnation on my white sports coat… Oh what a night that was!

 Ecclesiastes 3:8    A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war…                      

Oh wow, my squad, Ramirez, what a piece of work he was. He must have 20 great-grand kids by now.  Ramirez, you were a nut, but when the bullets were flying, I wanted you more than anyone else, close at hand.

Matthew 22:9    Go ye therefore into the highways, and as many as ye shall find, bid to the marriage.

Mr. and Mrs. Arnold Smith are proud to announce the marriage of their daughter Greta Ann Smith …..  Standing before the alter in St. Paul’s, when you raised her veil, and kissed her cheek, then gave her hand to me, you turned the page to open the greatest chapter of my life.  Thank you again Poppa Smith.

“What the hell is taking you so long in there?”

“I’ll be with you in just a minute, keep your shorts on!”

John 11:25  Jesus said unto her, I am the resurrection, and the life…

            A rose, just one dried rose from not so long ago. The wax paper that enfolds it is still in pretty good shape.  My dear, dear Greta; Once the petals of this rose were soft and moist … You know when I used to tell you that your lips were as soft and as tender as the petals of a red rose from the garden? I meant every word of it.  Every word of it, every time I said it, all through the years.

“Come on Dad, it’s time to go.  We have to sign you in by 2. “

I closed the family bible and slipped it into the canvas tote bag slung over the side bar of my walker.  Personal items are limited to what can fit on one shelf in my, semi-private room.  That room, that semi-private room, will be my new home, where all I will have for company, for the rest of my life, will be a roommate named Jack, and my precious memories… of a life that was once full.