My boys came rushing in with a plastic box in hand, excitedly asking what this fascinating new contraption might be. Before I could even process what was happening, I yelled, “Put that down, NOW!” It was just an older model label maker, purchased at The Container Store at least a decade ago.
They couldn’t understand my snapping at them, but that label maker conjured a very specific memory for me. It belonged to my Mom. When she died, my dad brought it over, and asked if I could use it. So there it sat, gathering dust on a shelf, for the past two years.
Near the beginning of her illness, when her vision began to fail and her hands stopped working like they should, she asked me to help her label her files. Ever the organizing enthusiast, it pained her to have her personal documents in disarray. Unsorted piles of paper were The Enemy. Clutter of any sort: anathema. I agreed to help her, even though my availability was limited with an infant at home. I was a slave to the baby’s schedule, with that first one. Now I wish I’d spent all day every day making labels with her – nap schedule be damned.
The kids and I opened the case, dusted off the contraption, and managed to get the old girl up and running.
Mom would have loved how my then-six-year-old took to label-making with such gusto. “Books,” he labeled the shelf where his books lived. “Dog,” he labeled the spot under the framed picture of the family pet in his room. “Map” was affixed to the United States map on his wall. “Lego Table Breakabul” was duly printed, along with specific, phonetically-spelled labels for each Lego container. Mom and I would have chuckled over that.
Mom never lost her love of order, even when she could no longer enforce it herself. She kept attempting to sort her email and maintain an electronic calendar, even when it took her hours staring at a large-font computer screen to get the job half-done. And here was the organizing spirit, alive and well, in a six-year-old.
I wonder if clinging to specific objects is a common phenomenon, when you lose a loved one. I have a lot of her things, but I didn’t know how precious that label maker was until the day my kids trotted up with it.
I just ordered replacement tape for that older model, has-been label maker. I hope the whole family makes labels with it for years to come. And sweet children, for the love of all that’s holy, do NOT break the label maker.
About the author: Joanna McFarland Owusu is a freelance writer and researcher based in Dallas, Texas. A federal government analyst in a former life, Joanna now spends her days wrangling two little boys and a toddler daughter. Follow her on Twitter.
