The Hope Chest

I have a hope chest in my bedroom, a gift from my parents when I graduated from high school. A few weeks ago I opened it up when my youngest daughter asked to see my childhood "blanket". I dug through the contents until I found the blanket, then we closed it up. When my oldest daughter got wind of this, she too wanted to look in the hope chest. So last week I sat down with both girls and we opened it up, this time to look much more thoroughly.

We all had such a great time, especially when the girls found things from when I was their age... special dolls and homemade items. I also showed them my cheerleader outfits (no laughing, please) some sorority memorabilia (nothing too sacred or inappropriate) and other school items.

They were mostly interested in my diaries and journals, my oldest wanted to read them. NO WAY! It's painful enough for me to read them... Ah, the angst of a junior high school girl! It was a good reminder of what girls go through at that age, something to look forward to, I guess... or not.

But the item in my hope chest that I wanted to mention was a report from 8th grade that I did entitled "My Life in Review". Which, is funny since I wrote it when I was 14, more than half my life ago. There were sections on The Past, The Present and The Future. The Future one is funny, the "goals" I set for myself included: Becoming taller than my sister (achieved), being a dancer on Broadway (nope), move to California to go to the School of Arts College (nah), marry a rich doctor (not unless he has a major career change) and so on. Then I had to write about "If my House were Burning". The text is as follows:

"If my house were burning down, and I had only a few minutes to get something out, I would take something that is special to my mom. I would take all the photo albums I could possibly carry. Mom loves them because they are memories that mean a lot to her. If they were gone they would be gone forever for they are irreplaceable. I agree with her because pictures are memories and you want to keep those forever."

I never would have thought at age 14 to put "become a Creative Memories Consultant" as one of my future goals, but of everything I wrote in this report, this page is the one that rings most true in my life now.

Well that, and I'm still taller than my sister.