My Box

Just before Christmas 1987, I noticed a gift under the tree from Sue. It was brightly wrapped and a bit bigger than a shoe box. I’m not one to shake gifts or try to guess what they are, and I don’t poke around the house the few weeks before Christmas trying to find out what I’m getting. There were too many bare or skimpy Christmases when I was growing up not to appreciate whatever I get, even the can of Coke Sarah gave me when she was 2.

Anyway, Christmas morning as everyone was unwrapping things, I noticed Sue was watching expectantly as I opened that one gift. I had already assumed it was shoes but I was very much surprised. It was a doll, a handmade, ceramic doll. At first, I thought she had gotten the gifts mixed up and had meant it for the little girls next door, but she said, “Read the card.” She had handwritten a note explaining that the doll was a replacement for the child she had not been able to give me.

Heck, I wasn’t even expecting a child, nor did I think we were trying. We had already gone through all that with the chaplain before we had gotten married. But I could see that the doll was important to her, and that made it important to me, so I kept it. And I still have it. She will be 24 years old this Christmas.

She’s in a bigger box in my closet along with all the other bits and pieces of my memories. There are pictures of course, but there are other things too. There is the cover for Christopher’s cast when he broke his arm and the “chops” he just had to have after seeing cowboys wear them in the movies. Not chaps, but chops. That’s what he called them when he was about 2. There’s a plaster hand print Sarah made at school, a report card or two and picture pins of Amy and Michael. There are even teeth left out for the tooth fairy.

There is only one thing that used to be there but is now gone --- a wind-up toy that belonged to Douglas that I gave back to him to decorate his first son’s room.

There are a lot of little things in that box, but they bring back big memories.