When we got married we bought a small dilapidated house in a friendly suburb. It had everything we needed - walls, a roof and some outside space. We added love and happiness, and within four years it was transformed into a family home. (We also added paint, carpets, curtains and a kitchen with a dining room - but those were just structural changes.) In year 5 we celebrated our son's first birthday in our back garden. It was a big family affair, because we had a big family. Andrew's dad made a push along trolley for R with blocks that could be taken out and played with, and then neatly stored back in the trolley. Such handmade gifts are real treasures. R loved the block trolley - he wobbled up, grabbed the handle and started walking.
A few years later it was time to move. We found a dilapidated house in another friendly suburb, and fell in love with this old fixer upper. (We're still here.) Moving is a stressful task, and being young and naive we decided to move everything ourselves with the help of a borrowed truck (and a friend - thank you Hazel). We did car trip after car trip, and were pretty exhausted by the process. And upset. We couldn't find one block from the trolley that Grandad had made. Just one. We searched and searched, and finally reached the conclusion we had to let it go, and move on.
Every now and then we would drive past that first house on the way to Andrew's work, and admire the garage door we had sanded and varnished. Or see how the trees we had planted were doing. Time passed, as it does, and we were well established in our new home. I used to be an avid reader of the property section of the Weekend Argus (one of my many strange habits....) and saw our old house was up for sale and On Show that Sunday. We couldn't resist a trip down memory lane, so off we went to visit the tiles in the kitchen I had sealed a week before R was born, and see the kitchen cupboards we finished a month or so before selling the place, and check out our much loved garden. We wandered through, pointing out this and that to the kids. In the back garden we had made a quiet spot with a bench and surrounded it with foliage to make it private. It looked just the same as when we left. We went to sit on the bench as a last goodbye to the place. And here comes the point of the story: We sat, peacefully, admiring our handiwork, when one of us reached our hand down under the bench, and picked up the missing block. Ten years later, and there it was, waiting for us to find it.
It was another extraordinary moment in my life.
The lost block was returned to it's home, and the memory was complete.
But this is the other point of this story: Andrew and I were chatting to my brother about this incident a couple of weeks ago (while we were packing up the house my Dad lived in). When we came to the part about who reached down and found the block, we each thought it was ourselves. All these years I had been convinced I had seen the block. Now I am not so sure - Andrew thinks it was him. The outcome is the same, but the process is different. This is important to me, because memory can be a fickle friend. What other memories have I (unwittingly) distorted to fit my own narrative? How much can I trust the details of my memories? I found myself on shaky ground. I have been doing a lot of remembering lately, and I would very much like to be sure of the content and accuracy.
One way to do it is to make memory blocks and try to fit them together to see if they work, and fit in the trolley, so to speak. Mostly, though, I think, I need to learn to trust my heart, and accept that my experiences are just that - my experiences, and the memory of them forms part of the fabric of me.
Lost things sometimes make their way back to us. Even when we think they are gone forever. Watch out for the unexpected!
