I came home and ran into some old friends I haven’t seen for awhile, friends we left behind when we moved overseas. I spent some time with our old house plant named "Oscar." "Oscar" is a spider plant and an old friend my parents gave to me when I was in college. I almost killed him a couple of times by over-/under-nourishing him. He survived and lived on for many years in our home in Seattle. When we moved overseas, he couldn’t travel with us. Rather than giving him up for adoption or sending him to the landfill, I gave him to my parents for safekeeping. We’re back together for a couple weeks while I’m home. "Oscar" missed us. Last Christmas he sent us a photo of himself with the help of my mother.
Today I drove another old friend–our old white Chevy Corsica. We bought her while we were in college and drove her for many years; that is, until she turned over 100,000 miles and we bought a new car. We gave her to my parents. I drove her today for the first time in ages. In the past, whenever we visited my parents we drove our own car, but this time we flew in from Korea and need to use their vehicles. That’s OK–we’re happy to tool around town in our old car. She’s older and weather beaten, but she still drives just fine. I noticed our old propane barbeque sitting in the backyard. That went to mom and dad too. When we moved overseas, we didn’t think we would need one because we thought we would live in an apartment. It turns out that we could have used the barbeque while in Seoul, and we ended up buying a small charcoal grill. I’m glad to see that we’ll use the barbeque once again on Sunday. I loved that barbeque and remember fondly barbequing off the back deck of our home in Seattle. We may also break out some alcohol we could not ship overseas. We still have a couple bottles of sake to drink.
My parents volunteered to be the recipients of many of our personal belongings–wanted and unwanted–before we left for Korea. We donated items we either could not or did not want to ship overseas, and we ended up storing valuables and momentos in boxes in their basement. I also left behind a bunch of books I didn’t want to ship (books are heavy). I’m glad my parents cleared some space in their basement to store our belongings. I am happy to give them some of our belongings to use as a trade-off for all the junk they’re storing for us. Thanks, mom and dad.
Maybe you can drop a burger between the bars in the grill just for "old times sake…" 🙂
Wade3016, thanks for reminding me I’m all too human. 🙂