Boxes

Photo credit © Depositphotos.com @AndreaA.

Over the past month, since my mom passed away, I’ve been deep cleaning our home room by room. Last night, while working in my mom’s room, it occurred to me that there are a lot of boxes in life.

As I work my way through my mom’s desk, sewing area, and bedroom, I’ve been filling boxes. Boxes of things for the family to go through. Boxes of things to give away. Boxes of books to carry upstairs to add to my bookshelf and sewing items to add to my craft room.

At the same time, we’ve been going through boxes of photos to find pictures for the slideshow for her celebration of life service.

This past weekend, I tackled the giant project of sorting through my mom’s massive stash of quilt fabric along my own good-sized fabric collection. Eight hours were invested to sort, cull, fold, organize, and consolidate it all into boxes in the form of plastic stacking drawers. 

There’s something wonderful about boxes. They come in all shapes and sizes and serve a lot of useful purposes. I’ve been using a lot of cardboard boxes in this process. And then there are shelves, which are like open boxes turned on their sides. Closets, cupboards, drawers, bins, baskets, and bags are also boxes of sorts. Each one serving as a container, a place-holder, a way to stay organized. 

On our piano sits a box that holds my mom’s ashes. It’s a pretty, white box that she picked out herself years ago. It arrived a couple of weeks ago from the funeral home in Arkansas where she purchased it when she lived there with my stepdad, before he died and she came to live with us.

Her bedroom is a box, too. Her own space to relax and watch TV. And it was there where she breathed her last breath and her life on earth ended. 

The day she died our street was filled with boxes on wheels. A big red fire truck. Four or five large Chandler PD SUVs. And eventually the medical examiner came. After the M.E.'s investigation, they wheeled my mom’s body out to another vehicle to take her away.

Regularly throughout this journey, I draw tissues from a box to dry the tears that flow when I feel the ache of her absence.  

As I reflect on the boxes in life … all the boxes that help and even the ones that remind us of loss … I am reminded that there is so much more to life than the boxes that we live in and that keep us and our stuff contained.

My mom lived in our home, she had her own room, she participated in family life. Her remains are now in a box in our living room and her belongings are being boxed up to share with others, but her life was so infinitely greater than those boxes. 

Boxes and what they each contain represent life. Time we share. Things we buy, use, enjoy, and bless others with. Love we give and receive. Relationships we contribute to and benefit from. Lives we impact and are impacted by.

As one who thrives on organization, I do find beauty in boxes and containers. But beauty isn’t really in the box itself. Beauty is in what comes from the boxes in our lives … especially the love we exchange with others.

My mom isn’t here in these boxes. She doesn’t live in our home any more. But there are so many memories. So much love she shared. So much beauty that transcends these boxes, which are just a temporary part of our existence on earth. She is now enjoying freedom and joy and wholeness unlike anything we’ll experience this side of heaven. 

I look forward to meeting her there when my time here is done, too. For now, I’m grateful for boxes in life and what they represent.