MEMORY TRIGGERS

Frightening is one word that comes to mind as I go through a stack of Greeting cards I found from 1989. Only 20 years ago and most of the senders are gone! A card from an aunt who died (when was it?...I can't keep track of deaths) and find that I date things to 'before or after' my parents and husband's deaths).

Fascinating are the cards just signed with a name, sometimes illegible since I apparently didn't save envelopes to tell me from whence they were sent. Some people sounded warm, some unemotional, as though they were signing a check. Some were signed with love and calligraphy; others are a history lesson by the letters they write. I chuckled at one couple who celebrated their faux fiftieth anniversary. With their fist and second marriages, that made the fifty years. They, too, have gone to wherever it is we go after this life....dust or otherwise. While, at the time, I was totally bored to learn what grades the kiddies were in and all about their childhood interests, knowing what has become of them twenty years later makes the previous boredom worth while. A baseline is always useful.

Fortunate am I that people my age were sending cards...most are gone now but I'm still here. Familiar signatures indelibly remain. Some cards made me sad, others were ho-hum. As I looked through this very large stack, the reason for which I saved them currently escapes me. What could I have been thinking? Then I remembered that I used to save pictures I liked and use them on Christmas gifts wrapped in colorful tissue, using rubber cement to stick the pictures on. Now, 20 years later, I don't need to wrap gifts because gift certificates come in envelopes. If I actually do buy a real gift with bulk, I put it in a bag amidst a bunch of scrunched up tissue...instant gratification Gone are those tedious hours of wrapping secretly (which the kids told me they usually found and unwrapped, carefully re-wrapping. Their surprised faces were those of the bride-to-be at her wedding shower.

Fervently I vow that now postage has gone up to $.44 a stamp, I will send very few cards. I stopped sending letters many years ago because I make it a point to stay regularly in touch with all my friends often, through phone, blog. Facebook and email so that an expensive redundancy is no longer an option. I regret the trees that were cut down for all these cards to be made and sent, but since it is a fait accomplis, into the trash they go to be quickly and totally forgotten...but it is not easily done for the givers. Most of them tramp around in my brain and will be there for my lifetime.