Prized Possessions

Kass got me to thinking (if you haven’t met Kass already, you should). Yes, Kass got me to thinking about my prized possessions. I have but two: a pair of scissors that cannot cut and a broken fishing rod. That’s it. Just two prized possessions.

The Scissors

I have a pair of scissors. The carbon steel oxidized to satin black decades ago. They’ve never been sharpened. Not surprisingly, these scissors cannot cut...well...anything. Still. I keep them on my kitchen counter. I look at them each and every day. I glance at them and
I remember...

These scissors, you see, constitute the one and only present my parents received on their wedding day.

They were married in a shabby refugee camp shortly after the War ended in Europe. They had not suffered through the war together. No, in fact, they each faced the horrors alone. But after the war ended, my father set forth to find his intended bride. A woman ten years older than he, the woman he came to adore ten years earlier. The way he found her, the way he suffered, is a tale best left for another day. Find her he did. He fell to his knees (mostly from exhaustion methinks) and proposed. She said “yes” (although she had harbored doubts for many years). They married and became one.

They were married in a refugee camp in the company of the starving (both physically and spiritually). There was neither tuxedo nor wedding gown. There was no banquet (at least not in a conventional sense). The refugees, their only guests and witnesses, ventured into the woods to gather mushrooms and berries. What little they found they boiled and shared.

And so it came to pass that my parents married and celebrated by feasting on a paltry few mushrooms and berries. They received a modest gift to help them on their way, the best their little camp could muster: a pair of scissors.

These scissors-that-cannot-cut rest on my kitchen counter. I let them rest because they’ve earned their respite. Oh, they had cut all manner of materials for decades! Indeed, they had. They cut the locks that cascaded past eyebrows. They cut open letters sent by my grandparents: one exiled to Siberia, the other a widow bereft of her daughters, struggling to survive in Lithuania. These scissors cut fabric by the yard as my mother sewed the clothes my sister and I would wear to church and school. They cut wrapping paper and ribbons. Bandages and gauze. They cut loose threads, tape and twine. Coupons, flowers and snowflakes, too. They cut all manner of things that must be cut to raise a family and make a life.

They were ever-present. They were the most precious present.

They are a prized possession.

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