Anytime we laughed until we cried, I wrote it down. The silly things my kids said, I wrote it down. Holidays and celebrations, birthdays and firsts, I wrote them all down and they went into that jar.
By Summertime the jar was starting to fill up, but we added pieces from our adventures: ticket stubs, wristbands, and event flyers. A few hospital bracelets from some not so fun memories, and the pink ribbon that was tied in a bow around our surprise puppy's neck.
New babies were born into our family, and we had said a sad goodbye, and their names were all added to the jar.
There was an excitement growing as the jar was filling. Our year was coming to an end, but it had been full. On New Year's Eve, as we waited for the countdown to begin, we sat around our kitchen table, all of us a year older, a year fuller. And we took that jar off the windowsill and the memories poured out.
As I read each card aloud, we laughed, we told stories, we remembered, we were thankful. It felt very much like a goodbye to the past, but there was an excitement for what is to come.
Then I set that empty pickle jar back on the kitchen windowsill, and there it sits just waiting to be filled.
