I spent most of the day yesterday going through books in our library. I have many new ones I want to put on the shelves and there is no more room. Books are a hard thing for me to part with but I had some that I knew I was ready to let go of. I hate to say this but dust was literally an inch thick as I got on the top shelf and back in the corners. It has turned into a big project that is going to take several days to finish, but it will be a big accomplishment and one I will be glad to have complete.
One of the reasons, I think it takes so long, is I start going through books I hadn't look at in a long time and before I know it I'm reading the book again. At one point Gary stepped in and said, "you are never going to finish this if you don't stop reading every book you look at." Books are special, I think they say a lot about a person. I've tried to write a short note on the inside of each book I read. The date I read it and what I thought of the book. I think, I read that John Adams did that and I thought that was a great idea.
I've said all this to get to this point, I started thumbing through a book by Edith Schaeffer, What is a Family? It is so good and there are some things I wanted to say about it that touches my heart. First of all, buy it and read it, it's really good. The family today is in need of repair and inspiration and she does a wonderful job of doing that.
As I looked at the chapter titles, my eyes fell upon A Museum of Memories. Of course, I had to go there because I've always felt like the greatest gifts I can give my children are wonderful memories. As I read this chapter, Edith Schaeffer does too. These are her thoughts:
"What is a family meant to be? Among other things, I personally have always felt it is meant to be a museum of memories - collections of carefully preserved memories and a realization that day-by-day memories are being chosen for our museum. Someone in the family - one who is happily making it his or her career, or both parents, perhaps a grandparent or two, aunts and uncles, older brothers and sisters - at least one person needs to be conscious that memories are important and the time can be made to have double value by recognizing that what is done today will be tomorrow's memory.
Memories (not all of them, but some of them) should be planned with the same careful kind of planning one would give to designing a museum. A family life in retrospect should be a museum of diverse and greatly varied memories, with a unity that makes the grouping of people involved share at least many if not all of the overlapping memories. "
Memory! What a gift from God. From the smell of the seasons, holidays, foods, music, the feel of fabrics, these things and many more have memories attached to them that can evoke different feelings in us. Some we remember and enjoy reliving and others we choose to forget.
As I get older, sometimes I have the thought, oh I'm not going to do that this year or we can get by with just doing this and on the other side of the coin, the young mother thinks, I'm too tired, my children won't realize it if I do that. Whether you are young or older :), remember that your children will remember whether they verbalize it or not and ALWAYS push yourself to do your very best and go the extra mile from the most insignificant to the most outstanding memory making event.
At Thanksgiving this year, my daughter walked up to me on Thanksgiving day and said, Mom, everything looks beautiful but you shouldn't have done all this, this is so much work. I told her, "yes, it is a lot of work but I want to do this for all of you because someday this will be a beautiful memory for you."
Truthfully, this year I was physically tired. A lot has been going on in our family and I had thought about just getting by. Putting a couple of pumpkins in the middle of the table and calling it good. I'm so glad I didn't. That evening, I thought to myself as tired as I am, I'm so glad I went the extra mile and fixed things where everything looked pretty.
When you are my age and you are living out your last quarter there is a satisfaction and peace in knowing that you have always given your best!
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