Oh! The fun I've been having...........................

After the last Attic clean out I had a small to medium pile of boxes to go through to divide up among my three children. Yesterday I actually had a few minutes to go through them. I found the newspapers I saved from the days that my children were born (1979, 1981, and 1989 were the years). I had also saved the paper from December 31, 1999, and January 1, 2000. Remember all the Y2K hullabaloo? I bet there were many people disappointed that morning when it turned out to be just another ordinary day.

Anyway, I also found a selection of writing I had done in high school; poems and short stories. Here's the gist of one poem (?):

This paper was blank before I wrote upon it.

Now,

it is not full,

But it's a start.

Feel free to gag. I did! It was still enjoyable to laugh as I remembered how good I thought some of those papers had been and what I could see now. Do you think I will feel the same way about this blog when I read it thirty years from now?

The other cool thing I found were a couple of piles of love letters that my former spouses and I had sent to one another. It was nice to be reminded of how much love there was between us, and easy to see why we opted to get married. For some silly reason all this love gets pushed to the side when one is going through a divorce (at least in my cases it did).

My children were all small when I divorced (3 and 5, and 3), so they have no memory of loving times between their parents. Maybe they will enjoy reading these letters and getting a glimpse of what once was. Maybe they will simply burn them when I die. Either is okay with me, but I am glad that I saved them so they could have the option.

So, I am down to one book shelf to go through. This has crap, I mean mementos of their school days; papers, art work, report cards, school pictures. Once this is divided up then I will turn up the nagging on (my) Mister. He is suppose to be gathering all the important papers (like insurance info, money account info, etc...) into one space, so when he dies I won't have to scramble around for any of it.

What? Of course he is going to die first. He's an old man according to him, and old people die. I told someone just the other day that even when I am eighty I will not be old, and they could only agree with me. But seriously folks. Do you loved ones a favor and get your business affairs in order. In the event that something does happen to you (and we ARE all going to die someday) do you really want them to have to put their grieving on hold why they look for account info to tie up the lose ends of your life? If you love them you won't put them through this. Think of it as a last gift, and throw in a love note of two among the papers for good measure. Just make sure the important papers are in those plastic page protectors because there WILL be tears of gratitude from your loved one for your thoughtful pre-planning.