I’m very good about de-accessing.  My goal is to keep our kids from having to comb through endless boxes of photos of their grandmother’s siblings and of their mother as an adorable two-year-old. (Well, I have kept a few examples of the adorable two-year-old.) Recently, I re-cycled, with some regret, a collection of Michelin “green” guides to places we visited decades ago. And I unloaded baseball cards and lacrosse uniforms on the kids when they were here for Thanksgiving. 

But I am absolutely unable to throw away my collection of birthday and Mother’s Day cards.  Like the "Happy My Birthday" card I once got from our son Jeremy on his birthday…his first-born was six weeks old and Jeremy was going through the sleepless nights and worry of a first-time parent.  “I wanted to send you this card to say thanks for deciding to have me, going through childbirth, and what I imagine were more than the six weeks of sleepless nights I’ve just come off of.”  Or from Seth probably ten years ago “Thanks for letting me be myself…even if it wasn’t always what you had in mind.”  That card contained an offer of “complete and honest answers to one dozen questions of my choice.”

My sweet husband is not big on cards, but he made up for it on my 75^th last week.  The front of the card is above.  The inside reads:

I needed ya.

I got ya.

I’m keeping ya.

Love ya.