Where Is My Afghan?

I awakened this morning thinking about the afghans my mother used to crochet. She was big on crocheting and I can remember how her sister, my aunt Lucille, used to try to get her to knit instead. Ma said she liked the feel of the yarn and the crochet hooks in her hand over those knitting needles; they were easier to handle and gave her mind something to do when she was watching tv or relaxing. She made some beautiful afghans, too. We used them for everything from throws to wall decorations to curtains when we were growing up and she used to let us pick the colors for her. Suffice it to say, we had some pretty bizarre color schemes in those afghans. I remembered this because I don't have any of her afghans today. In fact, I don't have anything at all from my past; nothing older than about eight or ten years, since that was the point I got clean and began being able to hold onto my personal items for any length of time. . I'm jealous as hell of folks who still have things handed down to them from their parents, or have things they had when they were children. I used to have a bitchin baseball card collection. Had tons of old comics. Had an original Rubic's cube my mom solved in about 30 minutes, a puck from a Philadelphia Flyers hockey game and a baseball from a Phillies home game. I had a pair of binoculars given to me by an old man I used to fish with on the shore of Crooked Lake, in northern Michigan. Man, I loved those binocs -I used to glass the lake and surrounding woods for hours while the old man fished and snoozed next to me. It was the greatest honor when he gave them to me... I had all kinds of goofy, sentimental stuff growing up as a kid, and I'm sure I had things that I could have passed down to my children, but the drug induced haze I must look through to glimpse those snapshots of my past have hidden most of those things just out of my view within the murk. Occasionally they do float into view; hence my thoughts about ma's afghans. Most of the time however, those things from my past are stashed out of sight behind the gauze of drug effect on the mind. I'm frankly glad for this haze; it'd be incredibly painful to have to revisit with clarity all the things I've lost over the years. This is the life of the street. Ya carry what ya can in your pockets and on your back. Most stuff you have ain't worth a plugged nickel, unless it's a small issue of dope, and that is worthless to anyone but another dope fiend and yourself. When I first got together with the woman I love today, she was sorting stuff in my closet, looking to toss things I no longer needed out. She came across an old brown jacket - butt-ugly, way too small for me and obviously a woman's coat. She had it out in the "throw away" pile when I noticed it and freaked. "That's the only thing I have left from my mother." She started to argue with me about tossing it anyway, but I'm sure the look on my face when she began talking told her it was a battle she'd never win. Her brother died a year ago, May. We have a few things from John, including music he produced and sung, his favorite electric guitar, and some old pics of him with the family. Everyone has something from John that they can cherish and remember him by. We need those things to trigger memories, remember our loved one, recall the moments spent together. She understands much more so today my obsession with the brown coat. Whenever she wants to get close to John, all she has to do is pop in a CD and listen to him sing. How freakin awesome is that? I cannot recall what my mom sounded like. I have one picture of her, given to me by my sister. In it she's sitting in a station wagon we used to car-camp all over the country. Oh, the times we had in that car! She has on a pair of sunglasses in the flick - she used to get the goofiest sunglasses on the rack - said she liked to stand out from the crowd when she wore them, and she did indeed stand out. I watch the hundreds - thousands - of people I work with burning up their days with....nothing. They have nothing and they are able to keep nothing. I wonder whether they awaken under bridges and in camps thinking about a blanket they had as a child and wishing they were home under it at the moment. My heart aches for all of them; I don't care what got them into homelessness, I just know that for most of them, they've already lost more than most people will over their entire lifetimes and without those little things from their past to help trigger recollections, even their memories are gone....