Earlier this week I visited my father.  He is moving to Las Vegas next month, and needs a lot of help packing.  I mean, a lot of help.  There is a ton of junk.

Much of the stuff is my mother’s and that’s the hardest to get rid of.  My mom loved doing crafts, and there is a lot of her old knitting, needlepoint, and jewelry materials.  My mom’s belongings must be the hardest for my dad to get rid of.

The hardest for me are the old photographs.

This generation will never deal with this.  Their photographs are online.  They don’t take up physical space.  You don’t have to decide what lives and what dies.  I found so many pictures that made me misty.  Pics of my mom, picks of a much younger me with friends that I don’t get to see anymore, pics of me and my brother before the world got its hooks into us.

I found a picture of me and Valerie and it broke my heart.  Of course I brought it home with me, because I obviously like to torture myself.

Shoeboxes and albums of memories.  Pictures in frame.  I can’t bear to part with them.  It’s like abandoning memories. It’s turning your back on your life.

Maybe I’m just a hoarder in the making.  Maybe I’m a sentimental fool. 

Maybe, but I don’t care.  I won’t leave them behind.