Refurbishing an Old Rolodex, One Memory at a Time

May 17, 2016 Tomorrow marks a year since my dad relocated to heaven. I have been melancholic today and looking through pictures and rifling through memories in my heart. I came across this Rolodex in a box of things that we took from my parent's house after he passed.   This crazy little thing houses my teenage years, right through the birth of my children.  It has numbers and names and catch phrases that tickle my heart and awaken old memories.
     On this eve of my Dad's passing, the best treasure is the smell. I can smell him in the yellowed cards and the aging ink.  My Dad was a heavy smoker.  He beat it at the end, but the house always had a smell to it, even after he quit. That smell is the smell of home.  As I bring it close to my face and drink in deeply that smell of my Dad, the true realization of the treasure I have found hits me.
     This journey will be a nostalgic one as I flip through the cards, leaving the writing of the past on one side, enjoying the memories and the emotions in the present, and creating a legacy for my children in the future.  Past meets present, meets future.  Join me if you'd like as I recount this life I have lived and the memories that are stored in my heart.

The back of today's card holds how to program my parent's remote.  I love that my mom keeps on trying, to this day, to learn new technologies and try to stay current for the grand kids. I also love her, just a bit more, that she is human and can not - for the life of her - figure out a remote control and how to program it. According to her notes. if you press SAT until flashing, and then hit "1-0-1" the remote will work.  Just in case, it didnt?  The 800 number followed for assistance. Lol, my Mom thought of everything.

His mercies are fresh every morning.  As the grief lapped at my heart today, what a treasure I was given to repurpose and to re-love these memories.

Today is a year.  As I write, I look at the time and realize that this was your last hour on earth.  Happy Birthday Dad.  On this card, Mom pasted the "How-To's " of Three-Way Calling.  I wish it were that simple - to cross over through the thin veil that separates us and hear you, in your quiet way, say that your ok, as you end our conversation with, "I love you."
Today we are going to a Seafood Restaurant/Raw Bar to celebrate your eternal birthday and your relocation to heaven- for we mourn with hope.

 Remember when computers were brand new and WORD PROCESSORS were taking college classrooms by storm? The electric typewriter was starting to gather dust as the monster size CPU and monitor found their way onto our desks.  To get a computer was an investment, it was huge, it was a large purchase that required planning and financing. Zelda was the first computer game I played, and it was all...just....words.  Blinking words on a black computer screen.  Simple commands moved the character, NE, E, W etc.  The World Wide Web wasnt even invented yet! 

My mom recorded all of the serial numbers here and the phone numbers for Microsoft help line, because it was a big deal that we had a computer and it warranted our care and protection.  Now-a -days, we all hold mini computers in our hand that hold the world at our fingertips, and we call them phones.