When Linda died she left behind more than memories, more than her legacy of two sons and two grandchildren, she left behind things. We all have an accumulation of things, things that are important to us, things that are important to other people and things that hold no value to anyone. Linda left behind hand made quilts, embroided pictures, scraps of cloth and little rolled up balls of yarn. Just things to most people, they represented the beauty she made from them, surprisingly many of the things she made went to people she didn't know but they were things those people needed, that was the way she lived her life.I gave most of these things to Danny and Clay who would hopefully hold them as keepsakes to be passed down through generations. I kept very little for myself.
There was one thing that I hung on to, it was nothing of any great value but it was something she used on a regular basis. It was an inexpensive ballpoint pen made by a company called Papermate, a company that has been in business for several generations. She was very particular about her writing instruments, Papermate, she said was the only pen that felt good in her fingers, the ink didn't glunk up and the ball moved smoothly across the paper. Papermate had been her choice of writing instruments for years for years.
Writing letters used to be her way of keeping up with people who lived far away but E-mail replaced that form years ago so her writing was regulated to writing checks for the payment of bills and that's where I found it - wrapped inside the checkbook.
I kept the pen just as I found it, it was hers and somehow this inexpensive pen became a piece of Linda that I could still touch so I have been using it since she passed away. Last week the pen wrote for the last time. I might could find a refill for it but somehow that just doesn't seem right, I'll hang on to it for a while longer maybe even till I'm gone, I'll have to give it some thought.
The biggest issue for me is that this was one of the last pieces of Linda that I had, now it's only another of many memories.
