Thursday, January 24, 2008

Cardboard Box


Sipping a cup of Seattle's Best coffee, the people around me were speaking in less than hushed tones. She was talking to her friend and lamenting the fact that she had to "go through all of mother's stuff." By the tone of the conversation it was clear that her mother had recently died leaving her with a "depression era" basement of stuff.

She described in detail all of the stuff that now was her responsbility. She complained. She sighed. She summed up the whole ordeal by saying that she was going home to clean up her clutter.

She spoke in choppy sentences about how all of her mothers stuff communicated the story of her nearly eighty years of living.

Just before she turned to leave her friend she spoke prophetically and pathetically. "It's pretty sad, the story of your life ends up in boxes."

That really hit me.

I did a funeral yesterday and its true in one way. We end up in a box at the end of our life.

But more than anything else I don't want the story of my life to end up in a box. I don't want to be remembered by a list of things and objects that I thought were valuable.

I want to be remembered for living life "outside the box."

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