My Shoebox

Tonight was a boring, slow night. My first night back after a couple days off. I have been fighting some kind of sickness for a two days and I really didn’t feel like working. I wasn’t real motivated to take a picture today. I figured I would come home, take an obligatory shot and ramble on about this or that.

When I came in I found a card on the counter with “Daddy and Me” written in perfect Hannah writing. I opened it up and this is what I found. These are the kinds of things that I can read 20 twenty times without realizing it.

When you come home from a crappy day, full of stress, just wanting to go to bed in order to put the day out of it’s misery and you find this…..it’s like the day never happened. These are the kind of things that go into my shoebox.

One day, a long time from now, when I am 80 or 90 years old I will have a shoebox. I would imagine that I will end up somewhere, a nursing home, a condo, maybe this house still….somewhere. I will end up there with a shoebox full of my most prized possessions. It might have my badge in it. Maybe some awards from my military days. There might be a few poker chips from that time in 2023 when I broke Vegas at the poker tables. Underneath it all will be this card.

I’ll pull it out from time to time and read it. I’ll show it to my friends, the nurses, whoever will look at it. I’ll close my eyes and I will be magically transported to Dec. 20, 2008 when I came home from work and found this on the counter. I’ll smell the Christmas cookies that the girls made with Staci, I’ll hear the goofy clock that plays Christmas carols on the hour, every hour, and I’ll see Hannah sleeping on the couch. I’ll remember kissing her cheek and laying with her while she slept. Then I’ll open my eyes and wipe the tear from my cheek, remembering the good old days. I’ll fold the card up and put it back into my shoebox and sit there, enjoying the end of a life well lived.

That’s how I think it will be. Surrounded by my three girls, who promised to love me when I was 1000 years old. I wish it didn’t have to be that way. I wish it could be like this forever, but it can’t. It can’t and that’s what makes this card so special. While time has to march on for me, I can always go back to Dec. 20, 2008. I can always go back and smell the cookies and lay with Hannah. I will never lose this card.

One day I’ll have a shoebox and this will be underneath all of the trinkets, with it’s well worn edges. One day. Reminding me of life well lived.