It's raining

We had only a few sprinkles today, so Rocket Boy was able to make some real progress with the clean-up. He started bringing stuff up from the basement, but he didn't want to go through it. "Could you look through these?" he asked me. "You can do whatever you want with it, as long as I don't have to watch." I was going to make up excuses not to, but my friend Sally came over and she helped me sort through the stuff. It was the nicest possible thing she could have done.

Old spices, boxes of vitamins that I've been trying to throw away for years. Those were easy. But then there was a box of Christmas stuff. It was one of the "lesser" boxes, not the most beloved ornaments, but it still wasn't fun to go through. I threw away an ornament I bought maybe 25 years ago in Michigan, with a wolverine on it. It was covered with mud and stunk. I threw away a tiny Santa cap that said "Baby's First Christmas." I could have washed it, maybe, and maybe it would have been OK, but I decided it wasn't important enough. Maybe I'm going to regret that. I saved a glass ornament that had no way for the water to enter it.

We went through a box of Clifford's stuff -- old letters, clippings, his wallet. Everything was soaked and smelly, and almost all of it went in the trash.

I found a folder with a bunch of photo envelopes in it, and that gave me a pang. Not because the pictures were anything special -- they were Rocket Boy's from decades ago, mostly just scenery. But the thought that MY box of old photos is in that basement was frightening. If it is, it is. It probably is. I pulled all the photos and negatives out of the soggy envelopes, and maybe they can be saved. Maybe I'll be able to save all my old negatives too. And then what? Make copies of every negative in the box? At what cost?

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And now it's raining, hard. Am I ever going to enjoy that sound again? At the first sound of rain I looked out the window, expecting that wall of water, that rushing, roaring, surging river to be in my backyard again.

It wasn't. But I don't know if I'll be able to sleep tonight.