What Would You Save?

Of Everything That's Yours, Pick One

A friend mentioned to me recently that he had a precious set of photos of his son, framed, from grades one through twelve. He said that it was his fire item. In other words, the one thing he would grab if his house was on fire and he only could take one thing.

How remarkable! That got me thinking about my own fire item, and I’ll let you in on that shortly.

Meantime, today, you all have homework. If you could take one thing with you out of your burning house, what would it be? The rules are: Assume there’s no other humans or pets to save, you’re alone. The item must be one thing, not just a bunch of stuff you throw in a bag. The item must be weight appropriate, in other words you can’t carry a favorite Lazy-Boy out of the house. Finally, this is an object you’re saving just for you, in other words you can’t save something that means something to somebody else.

So, of everything you own.

Of all the stuff you’ve accumulated over the years.

All the precious memories, art, pictures, objects, all of it. It’s all going to be taken away from you.

Except. One. Thing.

What is that one thing?

For me, it took me a while to figure out. In my mind’s eye, I had to go room by room in my house. What is precious? What is something that doesn’t exist elsewhere like on a hard drive or in g-mail. What THING/OBJECT in my life is singular.

Turns out there’s a few of those things. Little Bean’s first tooth. That photo album of photos taken my another photographer of mine and Meena’s wedding in Nepal. The small booklet of poetry from my uncle.

Of all the things, though, I’d save the bathrobe my mother made for me. When she was very sick, she made me a bathrobe. She made it very badly. It didn’t fit, doesn’t now. One arm is too short. It’s brown. She made it for me just weeks before she passed. I’ve carried it with me from home to home, place to place, every since. I tried it on only once to determine that, no, it doesn’t fit.

I have other things of hers, of course, pictures and books. My wife uses my mother’s sewing kit, for example, which is lovely. But that robe was the last thing she made and she made it for me.

That’s what I’d save.

How about you?