For a while I’ve had a vague notion that I wanted to preserve the Girl’s school stuff. Some of it anyway — the good stuff — selected drawings, some writing. But I wasn’t really sure why. I thought she might get a kick out of it when she was older. But we had an experience recently that cleared it all up.

We were cleaning out the garage a few days ago and stumbled upon a book that the lovely and talented wife made when she was in kindergarten. Initially, it surprised me a little that she didn’t seem very attached to it. It didn’t surprise me too much though because we’d just spent the past hour throwing stuff out that at one time had seemed important enough to save. Reading through it, I was immediately struck with how similar it is to the drawings and thoughts of our daughter who is currently half-way through her own kindergarten year. The Girl constantly bemoans the fact that she can’t draw as well as her Mom so I immediately wanted to show this to her.

Her first reaction was that the book was hers — that she drew it but had forgotten about it. When I told her it was her Mom’s book, her astonishment flowed over her in a slow, silent swell, finally lighting up her face and widening her eyes.

“Can I keep it?” she asked, her eyes never leaving the page.

She ran off to share it with her friends. She had an older girl in the neighborhood read all of the captions the teacher had written in the margins. And this was the book she chose for her bedtime story. For a day, it was her favorite book of all time. It showed her in a very real, physical way that Mom was once like her. And more importantly, for a moment, I think she could see that one day she would be able to do all the things her Mom could do. In a way, it gave her a peek into the future.

It all makes sense now. This is why we keep this stuff. This is why we’ll be toting it around for the next 20 years and finally ship it off to her when we need the space in our garage. It’s not for us. It’s not even for her. It’s for her children.