I looked up the definition of pack rat. It is someone who loves to collect things and hates to get rid of them. There is also an actual rodent called a pack rat (also known as a wood rat). They live mainly in the Western USA and parts of Mexico. They collect for the important purpose of building nests for themselves. Along with sticks and twigs, pack rats also love to gather shiny objects.
I am a pack rat. In preparing for my move I had to go through boxes, chests and cupboards that have held treasures for 16 years. But some of those boxes, chests and cupboards held those same treasures when I moved into the house in 2008 and, yes, I confess, some of those treasures had come with me for several moves before that. I found my report cards from grade 1 through 4. I found scrap books holding newspaper clippings of my years in 4-H, as a Dairy Princess (yes, I was a Dairy Princess – don’t mock me!!) and high school plays. I found notes and cards that came to me at significant moments. Treasures. Keepsakes. So go ahead, call me a pack rat. I wear the name proudly!
I have been thinking about what it means to hang on to the past, or at least objects from the past. When I hold a potholder that my mother made from bits and pieces of scrap fabric it takes me back to the farm kitchen, I can see her at the sewing desk, I can smell the wood smoke from the wood stove, I can hear the tea kettle whistling. Each of those a gift to me as they traipse through my memory.
There is also something about holding an item from the past that gives a link, a connection to the past. A simple thing like a postcard holds the memories of trips taken, people visited and places discovered. I know that I have no one in the next generation that will want any of my “stuff” but for now I will keep it for the gift it gives to me. Perhaps one day I will gain the courage to dispose of things. More likely my nieces will face the daunting task of disposing of my “stuff”. I am sorry, not sorry, to leave this task to them.
My name is Nancy and I am a pack rat.
Holà Nancy Joyce. Well, gracias, I am in good company.
I just wrote my brother that I had a letter in my hand written while I ‘sitting ‘ him when he was 3. It said he was sitting in the sink dropping thumb tacks into the garburator.
I am so old I do not remember 74 years ago. I have written to ask him if he remembers🤭
Rev Knox,
You hit this oh so right! I too am a pack rat and proud of it. Special objects and tokens are more than just things collected throughout life’s meaningful moments. The sympathy cards received when someone took the time to write, the newspaper clippings of family and the obituaries, the highly graded essays written during university days are all precious, this was before digital storage. Then there are the homemade gifts and cards from nieces and nephews, they simply can’t be haphazardly disposed of, it’s just not done! All these objects have special memories associated with them and cannot be garbaged. I’m to the stage in life I kept the stuff so long I can’t get rid of it now, someone else can after I’m dead, simple as that.
I am a fellow packrat. I have downsized many times. The last time, I truly thought I had done a good job. I removed ONLY the pages from the yearbooks that contained me and threw the rest out. It felt wrong to do that and even now I think about other people I might have wanted to look up in those yearbooks. BUT it has given me more room to save things from the memories I have yet to make, because I am not quite done yet. I do feel badl,y as well, that my daughter will end up throwing out drawers full of meaningless-to-her “junk” – but to me all those bits and bobs tell stories and jog my memories. I am glad I have them, at least for a little while longer.