SOL8: Reminders

            This morning I was trying to put some food containers onto a top shelf in the kitchen, but felt some resistance. Reaching to the back of the shelf, I scraped out the following items: half a dozen small brown paper bags and a card offering gift discounts to Netflix, with an expiration date of October 31, 2008.

            Here was a strong reminder of my late husband. Jack saved those paper bags because when he bought yogurt on his way to the gym or a movie, he often wasn’t given a bag to hold the container. So he saved bags that he did get, and he kept them on the top shelf of that cabinet.

            Now why was that Netflix offer up there? Did it come in the mail and he just tossed it to get it out of the way? I’m sure he wasn’t planning to give those discount cards to anyone—that wasn’t a thing he did.

            But that date, October 31, 2008. So many things are true of that date. Jack hadn’t yet fallen on the ice. My mother hadn’t died yet. Neither had my father or my sister, though her cancer had recurred. I was still working full-time at Publishers Weekly, which was still part of the corporate empire of Reed-Elsevier. The economy had just collapsed, and Barack Obama was running for president. The election was less than a week away, but I was convinced Obama would win, because I’d been doing data entry for the Democratic Party, and canvassers in Muncie, Indiana, were reporting that a third of the voters they spoke with said they would vote for Obama. In Indiana! As Republican a state as there was, a state where the KKK had of the 1920s had been in full flower.

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I’m participating in the 12th annual Slice of Life Challenge over at Two Writing Teachers. This is day 1 of the 31-day challenge.  It’s not too late to make space for daily writing in a community that is encouraging, enthusiastic, and eager to read what you have to slice about.  Join in!