Treasure Keeper

[what's brewing: Ma'am, would you like to keep your Starbuck's gift card?...of course, it will remind me of...]

I suppose my tendency to keep things started at a young age; in fact, it’s probably something I either inherited genetically from my mom or learned through osmosis as a child. My mom taught me to save special things, and I eventually adapted this to include saving anything that could potentially become special at some point in time. Even as a young girl, I felt emotional connections to the strangest things, and I insisted on keeping them once the connection was made.

My parents indulged this tendency and allowed each of us to reserve the top drawers of our dressers as our “Treasure Drawers.” My sister, brother and I would keep our treasured mementos in these top drawers and they were always overflowing with undoubtedly sacred items. New additions to the drawer were carefully slipped in when it had been opened just enough to let the item in without letting the rest of the contents emerge and keep the drawer from shutting again.

I had a collection of all the teeth I had lost, and a number of orthodontic retainers, saved in my drawer; by second grade I had packets of letters that had been exchanged with my childhood best friend who had moved away to Illinois after kindergarten; I had a coin purse of copper disks – pennies that my Grandpa helped me to place on the railroad tracks that ran through their town. Favorite stickers, invitations to birthday parties, old pairs of glasses (yes, I’d been wearing them since 1st grade) and funny shaped pencils were just a few of the collections that amassed in my Treasure Drawer.

The occasional chore of cleaning out our drawers usually resulted in a 2 hour reunion of sorts as we rediscovered the gems that had sunk to the bottom of the drawer over time. A limited number of items would resurface with the realization that their sentimental value had been lost over time, and those few things would find a new home in the waste basket. But most everything in the drawer was reinstated as a treasured item and returned to the drawer where it rightly belonged.

As I grew up, the Treasure Drawer overflowed into treasure boxes that were stashed in the top of my closet and then under my bed as space ran out. At the end of each year of college I would fill a shoe box with the best treasures of the year and bring it home to add to the collection. When we left for our new home nearly a year ago, I left many boxes of treasures behind in my sister’s basement and I can’t wait to go through them again someday.

Over the years my criteria for selecting “keepers” had become a bit more reasonable (though a non-saver like Jason may claim that to be quite humorously untrue – he calls my saving habits “hoarding” – imagine!). While my standards or criteria may have changed over the years, I suffered what Jason would call a setback in this regard upon moving so far away to our new home last year.

My treasure keeping ways have not only followed me here, but they have actually grown stronger. If an item (or scrap of paper) reminds me in the least of friends or family back home, if it captures any essence of an experience in our new culture, it goes in the box. Not just letters, but the post office claim slips for letters are treasures. Not just the photos from the sleepover we had for the girls in the Children’s Home, but the little notes about it they passed to each other during Sunday School the next day. Not just birthday cards, but the tags from the new items of clothing that were sent as gifts.

I don’t fault you for thinking I’m crazy; I’ve grown comfortable with my own husband’s doubts about my sanity in this regard. To those who aren’t treasure keepers, it is difficult to explain the genuine warmth and comfort I find in simply knowing these little keepsakes are safely tucked away. When I look through them on occasion, I am reminded of so many special details that would otherwise slip away from my memory. Each item represents a treasured moment, and those moments collectively remind me of the many good and perfect gifts I’ve been given by the Father of the heavenly lights. And that’s worth remembering.