essayist Elizabeth OnuskoEach week, we’ll hear a new This I Believe essay – this time from Elizabeth Onusko. She has boxes of mementos she’s collected since childhood that she takes with her every time she moves. Instead of being a burden, Onusko believes her collection of ticket stubs, notes, receipts, play bills and letters help remind her of the people and events that have been important in her life. Originally from Cleveland, Onusko now lives in New York where she is a fundraiser for a not-for-profit organization and a poet.
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Sometimes we have an experience in which another person is able to put so perfectly into words something that we feel. That is what happened to me when I heard this edition of This I Believe. Elizabeth Onusko perfectly captured why I tend to hang on to the things that I do. No one in my family, not my husband or my children, can understand why I have schoolwork from my children's kindergarten through third grades. Or why I have ticket stubs from movies and the bracelets from amusement parks.
I am by no means a hoarder, but I keep things that I may be able to go through and remember when I am in my 80s and 90s. Once I am gone, my children will be able to through my belongings (even if just to throw them out) and remember me. And maybe, they'll learn things about me that they never knew while I was alive.