Using It All Up

Winter is coming in today with wind and rain and cold.

If I live winter right, on the first day of spring, I’ll dip the last tea bag, burn the last log, and my snow shovel will break.

The task through most of life is building up. The task of winter is to use up.

I was just a young father when my Grandma Mac began to give me old photographs. I didn’t want to take them. I knew they were precious to her. But she insisted. She did the same with her children and her other grandchildren. She knew the particular photos she passed on to each of us would be precious to us, too. It was time for her to use up her store of precious things by passing them on.

We have friends who have been married sixty years. They told us recently that they had burned their old love letters from their courting days. “There’s nothing embarrassing in those letters,” they said, “but they are just for us. Our friends and children and grandchildren will have their memories of us, but those letters contain memories for us alone.” It was time for them to use up the memories that were too precious to share.

When we followed our grandchildren to the UP, the land of winter, we “downsized,” which means simply getting rid of a lot of stuff we were hanging onto not because we needed it anymore but just because it was there. It was time for us to use up the unnecessary stuff by getting rid of it, mostly by giving it to younger neighbors who are still building up.

If I live winter right, on the first day of spring, I’ll dip the last tea bag, burn the last log, and my snow shovel will break.