Star Wars vs Heart Wars... Memories for Sale

Sometimes Motherhood is like a swift punch in the gut. Like when your daughter comes home and says she is quitting college and joining the Navy, or your oldest son says he wants to be like the missionary in the movie "The End of the Spear" where the missionary just happens to have a plane crash in a remote area and is killed by a tribe of uncivilized natives, or when the baby of the family doesn't want you to hold his hand any more when you walk him to school. Punch in the gut, that's what it is. This morning I had a punch in the gut experience. My husband announces Sunday that we (as if he has a mouse in his pocket) are having a garage sale this week during the "World's Largest Garage Sale" which is our little towns attempt at claim to fame. Duncan America has had like 30+ days of over 100 degree weather. There have been several days where the heat index has been 120+. First of all, for the record and since I'm not interested in being politically correct... July is the worst time of year (IMO) to have "The World's Largest Garage Sale", simply because it is so hot. Secondly... I HATE HAVING GARAGE SALES!!!! To the very core of my being I hate having a garage sale. Yes, I'm not embarrassed to admit, I threw a huge hissie fit!!! It's one--hundred--and--seven--freaking--degrees outside! This does not sound like a good idea. In his typical, too sweet for his own good way, my husband assures me that he will take off work, get everything

together and he will work the garage sale. Admittedly, that's a little better but I still pouted about it for a couple of days. So, anyway he was outside in the driveway this morning as I was leaving for work. I stop to kiss him goodbye and look around and the mess (so thankful I'm going to work). I notice my youngest son's tub of Star Wars figures (he has about a thousand). The longer I stood there and looked at them, the more the memories came flooding back. Even as a toddler his OCD was alive and well. When he was as young as 2-3 his toys were categorized in separate drawers. Star Wars Characters in one drawer, the weapons in another, accessories in yet another drawer. He kept his little cars separated from his dinosaurs and he only played with like toys at one time. For instance he would not play with dinosaurs and cars at the same time because they didn't go together. It really was very interesting. I questioned my husband about the wisdom in selling these particular things... What if we have grandchildren some day??? I know it's a stretch right now, but it could happen. I told my Oldest son as he left for his African mission trip to bring me back a moon-faced African baby, so... It could happen. He assures me that we can always go buy our grandchildren Star Wars toys if we ever have one... "But that's not the same as having the same ones he held in his little chubby hands!" As my husband reasoned with me that in all practicality we did not need to keep the thousands of Star Wars toys he actually said... "See this one isn't even out of the box yet." Well, DUH! That's because he wouldn't let him open it because some day it would be a collector's item (eye roll)... "I don't even know why we have all these things still in their boxes" he says. I threw up my hands and said "That's because you bought everything they had in that little store in Eureka Springs!! You even had the guy take you into his basement and our Volkswagen Bug was filled LITERALLY to the roof with boxes of Star Wars crap!!!" He agreed to go through the stuff and pick out some to keep, which I argued wasn't the really the same as not selling it at all, but I didn't have time to argue long cause I had to go to work. My bottom lip was hanging as low

to the ground as it could go (and may have even been quivering a little) as I got in the car. My heart ached, my eyes burned with tears and I felt like the last little bit of my kids childhood was being sold to the highest bidder. At the core of it all, it wasn't about Star Wars toys, it was about the war going on in my heart about seeing my youngest child's childhood slipping away... At not knowing what the next chapter in the story may hold... Sometimes Motherhood is like a swift punch in the gut.