Little, Yellow Monkey Shirt

You never know how life is going to twist and turn.  You never know....  Several weeks ago, AT, my daughter, decided she wanted to switch bedrooms.  I encouraged it.  We have so much junk.  Too much junk, especially in those two rooms.  It was a good time to declutter.  The work seemed to take forever.  I was happy to empty the two rooms, but had to handle each item.  EM could have emptied the two rooms in 60 minutes, but it all would have gone to the trash.  Does this item go to Goodwill?  Does it make a good hand-me-down?  Does it go to the attic?  Does it go to the trash?  I tried to be strict with myself.  AT is sentimental and so am I, but you can only go so far with that.  She can be sentimental about cardboard and paper!  Too much sentiment and you still have cluttered rooms.  However, I've tried not to rip AT's childhood out of her hands. 

Anyway, in the process of being strict with myself, I got rid of a little, yellow, monkey shirt.  AT wore this shirt constantly when she was size 8.  Monkeys were her "thing".  She collected and loved them.  She was always running around the house in that shirt.  In constant motion.  Zoom!  I put this dingy shirt in the trash pile and threw it away.  Trash pickup came.  The next morning on the way to school, I started thinking about the little yellow monkey shirt.  Why did I throw it away?

I cried most of the way to school.  AT is definitely in the teen years.  That little zooming girl doesn't appear very often these days.  Zooming Girl may be gone for good.  I cried some more.  Why did I throw that shirt away?  Why didn't I keep just one little shirt?  It was early at school and not many people were there.  I found one victim, a teacher, and started telling my tragic story, tears running down my face.  She has teenagers also, and, soon, she was crying for the same reasons.  Childhoods were floating away from us.  A third teacher came in, also with teenagers.  Of course, by this time, we are all crying and laughing at ourselves. 

Weeks pass.  One of those teachers finds me and tells me her own new little, yellow, monkey shirt story.  It is much more serious than my story and her heart is broken.  Sadness happens.  She found me because she remembered me crying about my little yellow monkey shirt.  Suddenly, I find a reason for my discarded, little yellow monkey shirt, a purpose.  For a few moments, I cried with her.