I am thinking the Farmer and I are going to
leave a few things behind for our loved ones when we leave. It won’t all be
intentional.
I cut my weekly columns out of the
newspaper and file them in binders in my office. I now have 11 years of
columns. That’s 572 stories of our life here together on this farm. It’s like a
“Dear Diary” of my life.
Most days before I head out on my morning
commute I write a note to my husband and leave it on the kitchen island next to
the 50-year-old stainless steel percolator that he insists on using for his
coffee. I think the drip machine makes a tastier brew and more than once I have
accused him of using the perk just for nostalgia’s sake. He does things like
that. He has his favourite coffee cup too. I bought it at the Salvation Army.
He says it perfectly fits his nose. I didn’t realize his nose was a concern. If
I have fresh lipstick on, I seal the note with a kiss. Those ones are his
favourites, but he keeps all of them.
If he is going out to show a house in the
evening, my realtor husband leaves me a note. It’s usually very short, and
funny. But don’t tell him I said that. I’m trying not to encourage his
particular wry sense of humour. The
Farmer saves our messages to each other in shoeboxes so that our loved ones’
loved ones can get to know us a little bit better after we are gone. I think he
is up to shoebox number 4 by now. They are in a rusty old metal filing cabinet
in the basement.
I started writing important little things
that I wanted to remember in a hard-covered journal the year we were wed. I
still haven’t filled the book, because with my weekly column acting as a
journal, I don’t have much else to say. The book is saved for the things that
are either too banal, too trivial or too personal to print. That little book
will be of interest to someone someday, I’m sure. It is already of interest to
me, as I flip back through the past decade of scribbled notes about 30 degree
days in November, sheep that had quadruplets, movies that made me cry and jobs
that I applied for. It’s funny but I don’t even remember writing half of this
stuff and it’s only been a few years since I did.
I also seem to be one of the few people I
know who still prints photographs for albums. I actually have too many photos
for albums so the Farmer gave me an old cabinet in which to store them. The
cabinet stands about four feet tall and it’s two skinny drawers across, seven
down. It will take me at least another twenty years to fill it with photos,
ticket stubs, postcards and notes. I already have a tallboy of four drawers
filled with photos and cards from our first decade together. These are standing
right beside the front door of the house. I was thinking of pushing them out
onto the front lawn when the porch caught fire last year. Luckily I didn’t have
to.
There is something else the Farmer and I
will be leaving behind, and it isn’t necessarily on purpose. My husband and I
occasionally put money, spare car keys, gift cards and other valuables “in a
safe place” for future use. Then we promptly forget where we put these things.
I am also in the habit of stuffing ten-dollar bills in out-of-season coat
pockets, so as to surprise myself when the weather changes. I do the same with
purses that are out of rotation. Someone is going to feel like they won the
lottery someday, when they go through our things.
I saw a documentary once about seniors who
decide they don’t trust banks anymore. Some of them tape their money to the
bottom of desk drawers. They stuff the piano or the mattress with bills or they
fill a rubber boot in the attic. Then they forget that they did it. Years
later, they pass away and the contents of their home are distributed or sold.
Sometimes the new owners discover the bounty. Sometimes they don’t.
To whomever inherits the contents of the
humble home that I have shared with the Farmer I would like to say, check every
envelope. Do not throw out shoeboxes full of paper without having a read. Look
under the chair cushions, and check behind the dresser drawers. I left
something for you.
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