My siblings and I have been cleaning out the house we grew up in (see previous post), as my dad prepares to sell it.
A lot of the stuff we’ve gone through is already in the dumpster or the local Goodwill truck. Whew.
At times throughout the process, I’ve found a treasure. Something that jabs me in the heart when I pull it out. A memory hotspot.
Forget efficient clean up and packing. I pull up a chair and take a breath. Let the memories wash over me.
These are my horcruxes. In the Harry Potter books, horcruxes are pieces of a dark wizard’s soul. Keeping them intact ensures the wizard’s immortality. But in my world (and my parents’ house), these are pieces of my story, and they are now assembled in a Home Depot box. Unlike Lord Voldemort, I didn’t have to murder anyone to create them.
Here are a few. My dad’s light meter. He used it to measure light for taking photographs. When I was six, I firmly believed he used the dial to control the sun. I watched him develop the photos in his basement darkroom, under the glow of a red light. When the images appeared in the developing liquid, it was my first sight of magic.
A photo of my Japanese-born grandmother, who babysat me while my mom worked. In the photo, she’s eating a goodie on her front porch on a Nebraska summer evening. I remember her as very strict, but she always had time to sit down and tell me a story.
My mom’s old silver flute, which she’d played in band through college. In fourth grade I threw it against the wall in frustration, when I was learning how to play it. Then I hid it. She cried when she saw the dents. Then she forgave me, which made me cry.
A post card of Mao Tse Tung that I sent my parents when I was in college. I told them I’d run off to become a communist. I made up an elaborate story as to how it happened. They took it well.
A photo of my middle child at the age of three, with Shirley Temple curls, wedged into the bowl of a sink. One of many photos of my child happily sitting in a sink. It seemed to be AJ’s happy place.
Each one of these has power for me. Chapters in a story of family. A story of beauty, redemption, loss and many, many plot twists. A story that will live on, either through my children or through what I write.
That’s how horcruxes work. They’re pretty hard to destroy.
