snowflakes. no two are alike. completely original in formation and design, visible only for a short time. i left work yesterday after the snow had started...giant, heavy flakes fell all around me covering my hair and my clothes in an instant. it was silent and beautiful and i wanted to simply stand there and take it all in. i was reminded in those moments of the brevity of life...of the significance of a moment...of the weight of a word.
last saturday we held my grandpa's sale. just before we left to make the drive up my grandma called me to say there was little room to park and then said...
"they are pulling out the john deere. breaks my heart."
"mine too, grandma. mine too."
they moved to that farm right after i was born. 61 years of marriage, 35 years spent on that land. he built that farm with his hands, she cared for it day in and day out. a lifetime of stuff spread out over tables and trailers and muddy, snowy yard for over 300 carhart-clad men to rifle through and bid on. i wandered through the sea of bearded farmers, looking over things i'd seen a hundred times...touching things i knew his hands had touched...sitting one last time on the tractor we had climbed on so many times as children. i walked into his barn...his place of refuge all those years...the place grandma found him that october afternoon. i hadn't been inside in a long time, but certainly not since...the big building that once held so much stuff was virtually empty and i'm sure the few men who were looking around weren't sure what to make of the little redhead in the bright pink coat who couldn't quite keep the tears from falling. but, no matter...he was my grandpa...i had been the first, a position us grandkids argued over time and again in the hopes he would give one of us the gentle squeeze that told us we were special to him. in my mind he was larger than life, so strong, so big...there was nothing he couldn't do. maybe that was enhanced by the fact that he was gone a lot when i was growing up (he drove a truck) so it was a special treat if he was actually home when we were there visiting. he was a quiet man, choosing instead to take everything in and only speak when he had something important to say. he was ornery and could drive my grandma crazy, but he loved her and she him. his lap was a place of comfort, his overall pockets the home of treasures. the certainty of time measured by the pocket watch he always carried marked the all-too-quickly passing years of my childhood and now those of my daughter.
i watched the auction throughout the day, saw the men lay claim to pieces of my grandpa's life. over the course of almost eight hours his things were sold one by one. some got a bargain, some paid a pretty penny...each walked away with a part of him. what i realized is this...in the end we are all reduced to just that - things, some of which is junk and some of which is treasure - the worth of each determined by the highest bidder. those of us left carry the best pieces within us. his love, his gentle way, his smile, his laugh...all memories now, but of so much more value than anything tangible.
we are each unique. like a snowflake. no two of us alike, no two created for the same purpose. our lives hold more than we are ever fully able to see i'm afraid. we are often crippled by fear, or stuck so far in the past that we are unable to fully be everything we were created to be. i've only known a couple people who seem to have it figured out, who seem to know how to take every experience and see it for what it was and then live in the moment they are given so as to not waste one single minute. i am truly inspired by them and long to be more like them. we have one chance at right now...figure out how to live, figure out how to love, figure out how to be everything you were created to be.
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