Coming in past the deadline to join in with Donna at her Jump Start Your Blog link-up. Hopefully late is better than never! Last week's question was, "What would you grab if your house was on fire?"
I am thankful that this is a situation that I have never faced, and pray that I never do. However, it has crossed my mind a few times, considering the fact that we live surrounded by forested land that literally comes up to our doorstep. We know that if a wildfire ever makes it to the hill below us, during the right conditions, our cedar-siding home would be very vulnerable. Thankfully, the odds are not great of that happening since we live in a fairly humid environment, but still, stranger things have happened.
There are not a lot of material possessions that I am overly attached to in my home. When we moved ourselves from Missouri to Kentucky a few years ago, we did a big purge and it was the best thing we ever did. Each item that I donated or threw out was one less item we had to pack and it felt very liberating. Somehow, however, we still ended up with much more than we needed, and still have boxes from that move four years ago that remain unopened.
The things that I would grab are probably predictable. Photo albums I've made of the family since our boys were born (I print off photos and put them in albums because I don't trust computers to preserve them) would definitely be on the list. My laptop and a few pieces of artwork would be nice to save. I'd also grab the personally autographed books written by my grandfather and my father. The one autographed by my grandfather is now irreplaceable. And if there was time, I'd grab my jewelry box, not because it has high value jewelry, but because much of the jewelry has sentimental value to me. I have jewelry that was given to me by old classmates in elementary school, and a necklace from my grandmother, things like that.
But if the house was really on fire and I had time to only grab one thing in a hurry, I would not hesitate and know exactly what it would be. I would grab my wedding dress. My wedding dress, which also was once my mother's wedding dress. And while I rarely wish I'd been blessed with a daughter, when I think about my wedding dress, I wish a bit that I did have a daughter who could one day wear it, too. When I was a little girl, my mother would proudly show me her wedding dress and say "Perhaps someday, you will wear it." As a small girl, I started dreaming of one day meeting my Prince Charming and wearing that dress as I walked down the aisle. Not because I loved the dress so much, but because I loved my mother and her dream of me wearing it someday.
That dream did come true. When I became engaged, the first thing my mother and I did was pull out that wedding dress from the back of her closet. I had never dared put it on before, for fear of jinxing our dream. Apprehensively, I slipped it on. It was a perfect fit, and I felt like it was just meant to be.
Today, the wedding dress is tucked away safely in the back of my closet, waiting for perhaps my niece or, if I'm really optimistic, my granddaughter or future daughter-in-law to wear it. Probably not likely, but it's worth dreaming about. That's what my wedding dress reminds me of, that dreams sometimes do come true, and that is worth saving.
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