Keepers

[Gooch]

My brother works on the gate at Albertsons warehouse in Ponca City Oklahoma... If I remember the story correctly quite a few years back him and another guy went down to the pound and got a couple dogs. They had parvovirus and needed some real attention so that it didn't get out of hand. My brother called his mutt "Keeper" and he did everything he could to get him better. He got by the parvo and has been Fred's best bud for a long while. The other dog didn't get the attention he needed and is long gone.
Fred and Keeper are still greeting all the drivers that come in and out of that warehouse on their shift.

I got this today and it explains a lot about the way we were raised.

Keepers

I grew up in the forties and fifties with a practical parent -- my mother, God love her, who ironed Christmas wrapping paper and reused it and who washed aluminum foil after she cooked in it, then reused it. She was the original recycle queen, before they had a name for it... It was the time for fixing things -- a curtain rod, the kitchen radio, screen door, the oven door, the hem in a dress. Things we keep.

It was a way of life, and sometimes it made me crazy. All that re-fixing, reheating, renewing, I wanted just once to be wasteful. Waste meant affluence. Throwing things away meant you knew there'd always be more.

But then my mother died, and I sat in my kitchen that Sunday afternoon reading her old handmade cookbook in a binder, I was struck with the pain of feeling all alone, learning that sometimes there isn't any 'more.'

Sometimes, what we care about most gets all used up and goes away...never to return.

So...while we have it .. it's best we love it ...and care for it.....and fix it when it's broken..and heal it when it's sick. This is true..... for marriage...... and old cars..... and children with bad report cards..... and dogs with bad hips.... and aging parents.....and grandparents. We keep them because they are worth it, because we are worth it.

Some things we keep.
Like a best friend that moved away -- or--a classmate we grew up with.
There are just some things that make life important, like people we know who are special.....and so, we keep them close!

I received this from someone who thinks I am a 'keeper' so I've sent it to the people I think of in the same way. Now it's your turn to send this to those people that are "keepers" in your life.

[jr95Tstorm]

Thanks for sharin' this Gooch... Needed to be reminded to contact some "keeper's" in my life.... It's long overdue! Too much time as gone by between hello's....

[windrider]

Ya, Thanks Gooch,
Sometimes I need that reminder of what are true keepers and what is just throw away. In active using and drinking often times the keepers were what I avoided the most because truth and accountability was the last thing I worried about . Ironically I have spent the last few months finding some of those Keepers I gave up and rekindling the relationships through using the steps of recovery. A couple of them go back as far as 25 and 30 years.
Keepers are worth the special attention.
Windrider

[msmattie]

Gooch....thanks. The words in your post are priceless and bring back very fond memories of some of the "Keepers" in my life that have passed this year.......Thanks again, friend.
In His Love,
mattie