Montana Healing Connections

What's In Your Attic?

By tradition, the attic has been the place family's stored usable but unwanted items. My Grandma's attic was a treasure trove of old stuff. It seemed an attic was the ideal place to put outdated things. It was dry up there, with no dampness as the basement or a shed might have. Families back then were more localized, many living in the same homes for generations. Old furniture, tables, chairs, cheval mirrors, trunks of clothing, books, along with old 45 or 78 rpm records, journals and papers, bundles of old love letters tied with faded ribbons. These were stored treasures reflecting times long passed.

As a child, I had grand fun rummaging through the dusty attic. I loved to play dress-up with the old dresses, shoes, along with the fun hats Grandma kept. My cousin and I spent many afternoons playing "old fashioned" house, school and parties while making up our own fun celebrations.

It's musty up there, dusty, with cobwebs hanging from the rafters and corners. The light from the single bulb in the roof beam sheds a dimness adding to my nostalgic mood. I look about at things mostly forgotten, affectionate memories and heartrending stoic photographs of unknown aunts and uncles; ancestors I never knew yet in some long-forgotten way they have added to my life history.

Do you ever prowl about in your attic? It's a good idea to visit from time to time. Opening an old trunk full of memories of things that shaped part of who you are. Are there problems and pain that confronted you years ago, that may have been swept aside? Back then perhaps, you felt unable to deal with the heartache, wanting to only move forward. New knowledge took their place to direct you to newfound experiences.

I invite you to walk up those dusty, narrow, creaking wooden steps and enter your own attic of memories. Browse around, peek in boxes, open an old suitcase or trunk and dig through your vintage wardrobe. Explore what you have "set aside" there. Within the treasures of your attic, there is a treasure trove of personal riches.

Childhood memories flood over me. There stands my grandmothers' sewing mannequin. She made her entire family's clothing during the depression and taught me how to sew. What fun we had when I grew to her size and we could share the same patterns! There's some of her handiwork, old discolored doilies she crocheted, a quilt hand stitched, now faded and falling apart.

I perch on an old stool and open a small wooden box of memories from my high school days. There's a dried corsage from a dance and I feel the heartache of that first puppy love gone wrong. The yearbook my girl friends wrote pages and pages in. We pledged to be friends forever. I wonder where Betty is now; I haven't heard from her in years. A brittle, yellowed letter falls out advising that I have been accepted at a university far from home. I once again feel the excitement and success of accomplishment. Only when I discover that my close friends, including the guy I thought I would love forever, are going to the local junior college. I feel again briefly, the fear of the unknown, the acute aloneness all over again as I felt somehow my friends had betrayed me.

There are baby shoes and afghans of my babies, now grown with babies of their own. A folder holds faded photos of me as a baby, and my babies with my parents and grandparents. There are some reminiscent snapshots of a trip overseas with three little ones when we visited my parents in the mission field.

I let these times and recollections roll me back to a simpler time and easier time when it seemed my whole life was before me. As the light in the attic fades, I realize dinner should be in the oven by now. I am reluctant to leave. All the wonderful years wash over me as I relive the priceless memories in my attic. Treasures I will cherish forever. So much of the drama of each story now seems so insignificant, so trivial.

Today my stories look much more poignant. I cherish more moments now. I treasure a child's mischievous grin and sparkle in the eye. I look out my window to the forest, watching a yearling doe watch me, her ears up listening for me. She stares intently, innocently into my eyes. The birds have special messages and each flower brings joy to my heart.

I slowly walk back down those dusty narrow steps. I'm thankful I spent the afternoon in my attic. Those remembrances and moments are within the attic of my mind forever.

Donna Rae Riddel