history at its smallest

  

I'm not sure how I got to be so sentimental. Well, maybe I know. My mother and her sisters are not particularly sentimental, though they seem to enjoy my comments, questions, and zest for family history. But my father, he was another story. He was sentimental. I remember he would occasionally get out the old reel-to-reel tape player and play a tape of his parents talking and singing, and I'd watch him wipe away the tears streaming down his face. He taught me to love all history and especially our family history. He told me the stories about pieces of family heirloom furniture that are now mine. He instilled in me a curiosity about the unknowns of my ancestors and the detective method of looking at clues to guess about the past. Yes, if sentimentality is genetic, it was passed from father to daughter––in our family at least.

The little corner shelves I had built on the right side of my kitchen window and sink are even a nod to history, for that is exactly where my grandmother and my mother had shelves. All this chatter is a background for this: Not long ago we took the plunge and got rid of our landline and switched to only cell phones. (Do you wonder where is this going?) Our phones were old and we collected them to take to some local charity. Before I did that (we are now getting closer to the main point) I noticed the little tape inside the answering machine part of the phone. I rewound it and pressed "play." It was long so I sat down to listen. It was a little amazing. There was so much of our immediate family history on that little tiny tape. Discussions between father and son after a fender bender (they had forgotten to turn off the answering machine as their conversation went on). Calls from the realtor about our house on the market. Calls from friends about this and that. Calls from coaches, and my parents. It contained a lot of stuff I had forgotten to erase.

So now the little "power" tape sits on the shelf in the kitchen, waiting to be thrown away. I don't have a machine to play it anymore, but it impresses me that on that tiny tape are the voices of many loved ones, reminding me of times I had forgotten. Hopefully I can "let it go" soon, but so often I regret it after I throw something away. Do you have trouble getting rid of things? What would you do?