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In today's "order-out-of-chaos" session Pat and I tackled Ed's mother's hope chest. No, it didn't have HER things stored there, but my own. We started with the drawer in which I'd put a lot of my childhood photos and art work, my mother's autograph book from when she was 14 in 1927, memorabilia from my six winters in San Francisco (1996-2002), and other assorted treasures. After we'd organized and placed these things in a plastic container for safekeeping, I asked Pat to remove the items I had on the top of the hope chest so we could open it up. I had not looked inside for at least 12 years, but remembered having used this chest to store the women's meditation sets I had created and sold back in 1993-95. Yes, they were there, still covered in shrink wrap and looking just as I'd remembered them. But it was what we found UNDER those meditation sets that took my breath away. When Pat had removed the last set, she saw laid out on the bottom of the hope chest a bolt of blackwatch plaid cloth. I remembered my father had brought it back to me from a business trip he'd taken to Europe in the mid-70s. Pat lifted up the cloth and said in an excited tone of voice, "Patricia, I think you'll want to come over and see what's here." I scooted up next to the chest, looked down into it, and saw what you see pictured here.

Have you ever had your life pass before your eyes? That was exactly how I felt. And the visual sensation was enhanced by the evocative smell of cedar wafting up from the walls of Ed's mother's hope chest, a smell identical to the one I used to smell as a little girl whenever my mother would open the cedar chest at home where she kept our extra blankets. But today, instead of blankets, there was a white lace table runner to which I'd sewn items from my life back in 1993. These items included such things as a black and white photo of me at age 8 with my arms around our dear dog Susan, a gold pin with my birthstone (the pearl) that my parents had given me when I was in college, the blue garter I'd worn under my wedding dress in 1966, a photo of me running across Detroit's Belle Isle Bridge at the finish of my second Marathon in 1980, a triangular-shaped painting I'd made back in the early '80s when I was deeply involved in modern dance, the "Praying the Rosary" pamphlet and white ivory cross that I'd found in my Dad's top bureau drawer following his death in 1987, a photo of a painting I'd made for a priest I'd known at an inner city Detroit church to which I'd belonged from 1985-91, one of the postcards I'd sent to the Archdiocese of Detroit on August 19, 1993 asking that they remove my name from their registry since I was no longer a Roman Catholic, and one of my Word Art Peace Postcards that I'd created and sold after the first Gulf War. These were just a few of the things I saw spread out before me. I get chill bumps just thinking about it. After I'd looked at and taken lots of photos of what appeared to be a retrospective of the first 51 years of my life, Pat carefully folded and made a protective cardboard envelope for what she called my "altar cloth," and put it away in my art closet.

Oh, my friends, don't ever let any one tell you you should throw out your memorabilia. Life is made up of memories that can be lost if we don't have tangible reminders of all that we have thought, felt and experienced in our lives. They don't need to take up much space, as evidenced by my "altar cloth," but they should be kept and valued. When you rediscover them later in life, it will be like opening up your very own time capsule.