My shoe-box

The biggest gift one receives from parents is a life and anything more is just an add-on or bonus. Along the way, we start furnishing life with memories, experiences; sometimes we replace them with new, but some of them will always remain priceless in our shoe-box. 

This story reminds me of my parents and childhood - http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/19/style/a-generous-and-unwanted-gift.html?smprod=nytcore-ipad&smid=nytcore-ipad-share 

When our big house was raced down and an apartment with 20 other families was coming up, my father suggested that we sell off our two apartments and move outside the city to into a nice independent home. But I was holding on to my childhood memories (12 cousins, 6 aunts, 3 uncles, 3 dogs, 6 cows, neighborhood children, constant stream of visitors)  in that house and neighborhood and wanted to live in that piece of land that I was born and raised. I even argued with my father, a strong-willed man, that mom was used to the neighborhood and her relatives where close by and change at that age was difficult to manage. While change too at my father's age was difficult and he felt stifled in a 3000 sqft apartment. Though most of the houses in the neighborhood have now metamorphosed into apartments, but walking in the give us feeling of security. It has been 13 years since the apartment came up and now my parents feel the six bed apartment is too big and it tires them to maintain the place and travel back and forth between the village and city and maintain both places. Wants, needs and desires keeps changing with age and commitments.

Nothing was mine or yours in that house, it was always ours. We slept with our uncles and aunts and sometimes with grandma and other days with cousins. There was no need for new sleep overs and living rooms turned into bed rooms. I still remember when the apartment was getting built, we walked in and picked our individual rooms. I felt strange to have a room for myself, but nevertheless I took a smaller room; to have a smaller space means less things I can bring back and also less efforts to maintain. 

But any given opportunity in our apartment, we all still huddle with my parents in the same bed room and until our yellow Labrador, Tyson lived, he had his silk bed (mother's silk saree turned into a bed). My mother would share the occasion when the saree was bought or the occasion it was gifted (aunts marriage, my sister's birth, Diwali) memories turned into bed. Like us Tyson had his share of dreams and nightmares and he used to yelp in the middle of the night. One of us wake up and comfort him and till he goes back to sleep.

After Tyson, it is my nephew who slept between my parents and now he has found his permanent place in the bedroom when he visits for his summer and winter holidays. He too has his dreams and nightmares and tradition of comforting continues. Hope someday he will have his own shoe-box.

Reading this article automatically opened my shoe-box and I found pictures, words and memories queuing up to get my attention and curation. A Sunday morning newspaper read is as good as a visit to a Church; it makes you feel thankful and appreciate life. Hope the read makes you reach out for your shoe-box.