Wonder

“You just get her to Utah.  I can make arrangements to go up in a week and pack up all of her stuff and bring it home.” I said 

“I could do that.” He offered.

Pause for a half beat and then very carefully I responded.  “Please don't take this the wrong way. In the past when you have been faced with the daunting challenge of packing you usually shut down.   I don't think she'll be able to help since she was just released from the hospital.  Are you sure you are up for that?”

*********************

There's history here.  

On our first date we looked at his scout patch collection.  I didn't know people collected scout patches.  He probably had 500 of them.  It was odd but hey…people have collections.  Like stamps.  And coins. And scout patches.

While we were dating my mom shared an experience she had at Walmart with my little brother when he was looking at a Luke Skywalker action figure.  A stranger passed by and mentioned that if you had the original Luke Skywalker he was worth about $400. H-er’s eyes lit up and his Star Wars collection began.  We drove out of our way to different stores.  Walmart, KBtoys, Toys R Us, Kmart, Target   He camped out overnight at new store openings and ran through the aisles with a cart throwing toys in.  He made friends at these openings and they would get together and share and trade figures.  He went to the stores at midnight when the trucks were being unloaded and made friends with the stockers who would set merchandise aside for him.  He bought directly from the toy manufacturers.  Then Amazon happened.

By the third year of our marriage one of our rooms in our three bedroom apartment was filled with boxes of toys. By the fifth year the boxes spilled out into our bedroom and front room.  I finally got a Uhaul and with permission moved most of them to a warehouse at my work.

By the 8th year we had three small storage rooms and our front room of our 900 square foot apartment in Lincoln filled with boxes.  The collection had expanded to include Lord of the Rings, Hot Wheels, and GI Joe figures. 

By the 12th year we had a three car garage that fit one car and had boxes stacked to the ceiling in the rest of it.   The collection had now expanded to include Transformers and Beast Wars.  Meanwhile his patch collection had also grown. He probably had over 3000 patches. 

By the 15th year we had an additional small room filled to the ceiling with boxes, one of the bedrooms was lined with floor to ceiling shelves with toys and half our bedroom had boxes of toys stacked in it.  (This didn't include the carded figures tacked on the walls of An Heritage #2 and #3's room, the computer room, and Legos set up all over the upstairs loft.)   His collection now included Harry Potter, Legos, and over 5000 patches.

 
He didn't just buy one.  He bought multiples.  He had 20 of the original Luke Skywalker figures (loose), 15 bumblebees loose, and 10 more mint on card.  He had 4 of the original Millennium Falcons and Five of the original Darth Vader Carry Cases.  He had 40 Gollum figures (mint in box). He had 20 of the same OA flaps.

Sometimes he needed to find one of them.  Out would come the boxes.  One after another and soon they entire 3100 square foot house would be strewn with opened boxes and stacks of figures.  And if anyone touched one, scratched one, bent a corner of a box, there would be hell to pay. 

"Don't worry. I'll put it all back".  I'd been hearing this for 15 years.   Guess how many times he'd put them back.  It was usually me.

I was the one who boxed them all up and moved them from Utah to Nebraska.  I was the one who boxed them all up when we moved from Nebraska to Arizona.  We had so many boxes that I put colored stickers on them.  The yellow ones were toys.  Pink were my daughters. Blue for the boys. White for the kitchen Green for storage.  I didn't quite have everything boxed up when the ward showed up to load our moving container and H-er took the time to pull me aside and tell me how embarrassed he was at how disorganized and unprepared I was. When we arrived in Arizona the new ward unloaded our train car container in two hours flat because they knew exactly where every box went and the Elders Quorum talked for months about how it was the easiest move in they had ever done. I was the one who boxed them all up when we moved from house  #1 to #2 to #3 (each bigger than the last) in Arizona.  

House # 3 was huge.  But it didn't feel huge. I was surrounded by toys.  They ate at me.  They dragged me down.  I loathed them.  They were a millstone around my neck as I tried to swim in the ocean. I struggled with the Herculean task of keeping two young boys from touching his toys. He'd spread them out and finally after two weeks of tiptoeing around them he'd sleep all day on a Saturday and I'd spend 8 hours boxing them all up again.  He'd emerge from his room and complain "you better not have damaged any of them".   

A week later I'd hear the dreaded "Which box is the white Gandalf in?" And it would start all over.

Few knew my pain though.  Until my sister came to visit.  She was moving cross country and it coincided with a family reunion. This was one of the times I didn't take H-er. While I was gone he went searching for a toy.    "Don't worry.  I'll put them all back before you get home".

It didn't happen.  This time it was my sister who spent four hours boxing up toy after toy after toy with me.   “How often does this happen?” she asked. 

Eventually we lost the house.  He was living in Utah at that point.  I told him flat out I wasn't moving another toy.  I would leave them at the house.  He showed up with a friend (who did a shuddering double take) and a Uhaul truck to take them away to a storage place in Utah and we began boxing   And boxing.  And boxing.  On the third day H-er gave up and slept while his friend and I continued to box up toys.  He took every last toy away. 

I wandered through my echoing house marveling at the sheer size of it and for the first time in two years I didn't want to lose it.  It was a home and not a giant storage unit.

I moved to Arizona house #4 – half the size. Toy free.  It was glorious.  I could breathe.

Year 17:  Affair # who knows.  I had stopped counting.   “If you want to save our marriage you will come to Arizona right now.” I was offering him one last chance.

“Ok.  I have to clean up the basement first.”  My head hit the wall in despair.

He was living in his adopted dad's basement and had overrun it with toys.   Two weeks passed.

Just like every other time he would start and he would shut down. It would give him a headache. He just couldn't do it.  He was never going to make it. So I got on a plane.  And while he slept I boxed and stacked. It only took me a day. 

 **************************

“I'll go buy a bunch of boxes.  I can do it.  How much stuff can she have?”

“Forget the boxes.  Just stuff everything in bags.  Do what you can and if it gets overwhelming I understand. Whatever you can do means less for me to do.”  I would take whatever I could get.

4 hours later....
“She says there's not enough shampoo”
“Oh are you at the hotel?   Did you get anything packed up?”
“We got it all.”

SILENCE

“You got the cast iron skillet?” 
“Yep.”
“You got the spices?”
“Yep.”
“You got her six months supply of contacts?”
“Yep.”
 “You got the stuff from the secret hiding place under the bed?”
“Yep.”

I forced myself to stop asking.

And later I cried.

And then I laughed when I told An Heritage #4 that his dad had packed up all of his sister’s stuff and he stared at me with a look of comical incredulity. "Does this mean dad has changed?"