Box of Love.

Fresh, farmers market flowers.

So every now and then I come across something that belonged to Mam that makes me stop in my tracks. Obviously we are surrounded by her stuff all of the time so the everyday 'Mam stuff' is ok like the fridge. I can deal with that. Or the floor. That's not too emotional. But pretty much everything else has a silly sentimental story. Even the dreaded wooden spoon. Every time I take it out I am like 'I wish Mam could chase me around threatening to whack me with the wooden spoon again.' EVERYTHING has sentimental value. I found it really hard when the vegetables had to be thrown out that had gone bad after she died. People were just throwing them in the bin because they didn't understand that we would never have carrots in our fridge that Mam had bought again. So what did I find? Well Aunty Carolann actually found them down in Grandmas house. What do you think is in this little box?

It is her collection of 'Love is...' cartoons that she cut out of the newspaper everyday for what appears to be a very long time and she apparently had a lot of time on her hands before she had five kids because she even organised them into relevant categories. I would say there are about 300 little cutouts.

This isn't even half of them!

They are so sweet and lovely and the best bit is the biggest pile was the one labelled 'Food!' (If you click on the picture you can read them better.)

I don't know why these are so sentimental to me. Maybe because she did it before she was married and was at the stage of her life where I am now and I can see how excited she was about starting her life as a wife and mother. Or maybe because she was such a die hard romantic and how sweet it is that she cut them out everyday. How fitting is it that she became a relationship and marriage counseller? She loved love. Or maybe because they feel like little black and white, individually and lovingly cut out messages that I can always read from her. If I ever need relationship advice from my Mam I just have to look through her little box of love.

Miss you Mam.

Joey x