Some things you keep. Like
good teeth. Warm coats. Bald husbands. They're good for you, reliable
and practical and so sublime that to throw them away would make the
garbage man a thief. So you hang on, because something old is sometimes
better than something new, and what you know is often better than a
stranger.
These are my thoughts, they make me sound old, old and tame, and dull at
a time when everybody else is risky and racy and flashing all that's new
and improved in their lives. New careers, new thighs, new lips, new
cars. The world is dizzy with trade-ins. I could keep track, but I don't
think I want to.
I grew up in the fifties with practical parents - a mother, God bless
her, who washed aluminum foil after she cooked in it, then reused it. A
father who was happier getting old shoes fixed than buying new ones.
They weren't poor, my parents, they were just satisfied. Their marriage
was good, their dreams focused. Their best friends lived barely a wave
away.
I can see them now, Dad in trousers and tee shirt and Mom in a house
dress, lawn mower in his hand, dishtowel in hers. It was a time for
fixing things - a curtain rod, the kitchen radio, screen door, the oven
door, the hem in a dress. Things you keep. It was a way of life, and
sometimes it made me crazy. All that re-fixing, reheating, renewing. I
wanted just once to be wasteful. Waste meant affluence. Throwing things
away meant there'd always be more.
But then my father died, and on that clear autumn night, in the chill of
the hospital room, I was struck with the pain of learning that sometimes
there isn't any 'more.' Sometimes what you care about most gets all used
up and goes away, never to return.
So, while you have it, it's best to love it and care for it and fix it
when it's broken and heal it when it's sick. That's true for marriage
and old cars and children with bad report cards and dogs with bad hips
and aging parents. You keep them because they're worth it, because
you're worth it.
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