A hazard of heartache in acquiring one’s décor from thrift stores.
I’ve taken to using the guest bedroom for most of my Internet reading. My productivity had improved, but only at first. I still spend way too much time reading various items that catch my attention, one after another.
The other reason for setting up my laptop in there, namely to ensure that my son’s former bedroom didn’t become some dusty, lonely place where the cats sometimes sleep, has been well-served. I took some Halloween decorations from the box—my wife doesn’t use all the decorations we have every year—and set them out. Among them was this six-inch tall figure of a ghost rising from a pumpkin.
As with most of our treasures, my wife found this at a thrift store. This item is unusual for several reasons. First off is the belt beneath the ghost’s waist, more like an ankle bracelet, if the ghost had legs. Then there is how the ghost is turned. He does not face the same way as the face on the jack o’lantern. The ghost’s purpose seems to be to point out something to one side, which I have him doing here.
The punch to the heart came when I turned it over.
From an elementary school class party, 20 years ago as I write. I remind myself that it’s guys like me who are the sentimental ones; Sara apparently thought nothing of dropping off this old thing at the thrift store when she did. Her teacher, whose name I can’t make out, likely would not have had her feelings hurt had she known. Mrs. M____ might well have approved of Sara’s practicality. This ghost-and-pumpkin was one of many childish things purchased for one of the many children who had come and gone in her classroom throughout the years. Let another child have it.
Now it belongs to this 59-year-old child, whose heart breaks to think of the passages of children, as they sour from the wholesome innocence of elementary school parties and all those things a child eagerly anticipates throughout the year into the gray sameness of adult living, when the only thing looked forward to is the next day off from work. I pray Sara turned out all right, that she didn’t become fat, embittered, divorced, etc.
However she turned out, the smile of this friendly ghost as gifted by a long ago teacher in a long ago class no longer sparked joy, as the saying goes. Why I struggle so with this, I don’t know. I’m a weird guy.
Anyway, Mr. Ghost, you’ll have a home with me, for as long as I’m still here.
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