All the boxes

After and during each move I see the same boxes. The ones with my daughters name written on the labels, "Makenna's toys, Makenna's room, Makenna's books". Each time in the last year and half of packing and unpacking the boxes never get opened.  The go into a storage closest. The boxes will never get unpacked into her room, with her bed, or her toys. Instead the small items I did keep as a memory are all nestled away in boxes with her name on them. I put up her pictures in my home, it's usually the first thing I do to make it seem like home. I keep her memory book at my bedside table to read at night. I keep her favorite bedtime story on my book shelf to read on those hard nights when sleep eludes my wandering mind. There are about 8 boxes full of her memories.  Each box holds a trinket of the 4 and half years of her life. Some people tell me each time I should try and get rid of these boxes...ya know move on already.  And at times I wonder if it is not the actual boxes I'd be escaping but her memory.  It's easy for parents that have children to not see the values in those items that are packed so neatly away. However for someone who has a child in heaven all we have are those boxes. We don't have a smiling child to snuggle each night, we don't have anymore art work from school to hang on the refrigerator anymore....what we have are 8 boxes of memories.  Imagine having to place your life in 8 boxes...and be fine with knowing that is all you get. 8 boxes of memories.