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Writer's pictureChristineMartin

A Little Red Lunch Bag

The autumn colors are starting to turn and fall to the ground. Seasons change. Life changes. I often think back to the days of my childhood—when life seemed simpler and all my family were close by. Now that I live with my sweet husband far away from where I grew up, I find myself missing my family—and those members who have passed on.


It’s strange to think that I once saw myself married with children and still visiting my great-grandmother. How differently we see time as a child. I only wish that I could call her up and chat a while. Oh the things that I would tell her. Oh the questions I would ask. I think, too, of my grandmothers—both passed on as well and my grandfather whom we called Papa. Life seems so different now. I always thought I would have them still—after I was married. I never dreamed that my husband wouldn’t even have the chance to meet my grandmas. I never dreamed that my children wouldn’t know any of them.


Recently, I’ve been going through things in my home, getting rid of old junk and de-cluttering the house, and as I do so, there are many memories that come to mind—things that I’m reminded of simply by looking at or picking up an old item from my childhood. Some memories are funny; some bittersweet. Just yesterday I found an old red lunch-bag that I’ve had since I was six or so.


My sister Kaelyn and I used to play house and we would have several made up children. Each child had a name and we would type up their school schedule and extra curricular activities. My sister had a matching red lunch bag and we would pack our kid’s lunches and take them to school and ballet lessons—all of which were held somewhere on our property. What fun we had playing house. We had babies too, of course, which would be played by our favorite dolls, and we would pack up strollers and go on picnics. We built play-houses out of sheets on the clothes line and set up camp with play dishes and things. We also used the real life playhouse that Dad built.


Over the years we made up different life scenarios and would have different husbands and children and live in different eras and have different occupations. It was a lot of fun to pretend. One of my most common husband names was Danny. I had no idea, then, that I really would marry a man named Daniel. Kaelyn and I laughed, after I was engaged, thinking of the irony in that. Life can be funny.


Memories come to us in so many ways—the sound of a bird, a song on the radio, the way something feels or smells, a place you visit, a picture on the wall or in an album or one that pops up in your memories. How times change. And yet, they stay the same. The leaves fall and grow back in spring. We grow old, but never grow up. And old red lunch bags still remind us of our childhood—playing house with our sisters and our dolls.


(Here's an old picture of my sister and I with our first two favorite dolls. My doll's name was "Little Sister".)


(Later we got our 'hush babies' from Grandma Hall and they became favorites as well. Here they are on our laps. The cute boy in the middle is our little brother Christopher. My doll was often either Jenny or Andrew--depending on what we were playing. When we played "Little House on the Prairie", my sister's 'hush baby's' name was Carrie, she was Ma, and I was Laura. Christopher sometimes played house with us and on the prairie, he was Albert.)

(Here we are sitting in our little lawn chairs outside)

(Here we are not long before I got married)

(And here we are together on my wedding day. Kaelyn was my maid of honor, naturally.)



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