The Scissors

I don’t remember when I got them. They’re not the smaller dull-tipped kind you’d use for school when you were young, and as you get older, those crafty kind of items seem to disappear off your school supplies list all together. These scissors just kind of appeared.

I’ve tried to think of school projects I might have needed them for. There was my family tree project in the 5th grade. That required a lot of cutting. There were my camp years when I spent whole summers cutting threads and making friendship bracelets. There were dream boards and monthly cut-out sessions of Tiger Beat—my closet door a hormone-fueled adolescent shrine with the likes of Prince William, Brad Renfro, and Leonardo DiCaprio plastered over every inch. I suppose I could’ve bought the scissors for anything really, but what I remember using them for was scrapbooking.

As a kid I was obsessed with preserving memories. I’d take pictures of everything—people and places and weird bugs and storm clouds and strange rock formations and my nail that one time I got it caught in the car door. I’d take pictures of my mom’s gardens every spring and summer, documenting the changes year after year. I did JC Penney-like photo shoots with my niece and my brother, posing them just so. I fancied myself a stylist of sorts in those days. For the love of Peg Bundy, I was not.

I was also not a very good photographer. I learned that early on. So I supplemented with postcards whenever I could. I’d buy one of every postcard from the circular rack in souvenir shops while on vacation. I’d save tickets and receipts, brochures and even leaves—anything that said “I’ve been here.” Anything to not forget. Then I’d head to the craft store and pick out a giant scrapbook, sit on the floor in my room, a pile of ephemera next to me, and I’d cut out pictures and size-down maps, glue shells and branches to the page. I’d add little captions or funny dialogue that I remembered having. I’d state the obvious—Swimming with the Dolphins! —over a picture of me quite literally swimming with dolphins.

I had piles of these scrapbooks, and piles of unused photos, and piles of postcards and various other odds and ends. Some of it I’d use elsewhere: on notebooks and journals, or even binders for school. I’d cut some out and hang it on my walls, and as I got older, I’d create little collages for the visor in my first car. I loved memories.

And I did this all with MY scissors.

I say this because they were mine. They sat in my room and were used by me, sure, but they also had this handy little hinged window on the side with a small piece of cardstock you could write on. ‘Krissie,’ mine read with a little heart scribbled in.

When I left for college, I didn’t take them with me. I wasn’t scrapbooking much in those days. When I came back home, I noticed that my name had been crossed off and they now said ‘Michael’ and had a small smiley face. Typical younger brother behavior.

Years later, while visiting, those same scissors were in the junk drawer. I was scrapbooking even less then. I didn’t have time to document the life I was living; it was moving too fast. My brother was older, getting ready to head off to the Air Force. His name had been crossed out, replaced by my niece’s—Sammie—no doubt scribbled it on after she needed them for some craft project.

I’ve moved a lot since college. At first most of those scrapbooks came with me, but over time you collect more and more things, and moving forces you to get rid of a lot the old stuff. The memories that you feel compelled to keep change over time. High school didn’t mean as much to me anymore, so I was okay losing the scrapbooks—cutting off that dead weight.

A few years ago while going through cancer treatment, weak from chemo and radiation, I pulled those scissors out of the junk drawer in my mom’s house once again.

“You still have these?” I asked my mom.

“Oh, I could never get rid of them.” She took them and held them up for me to see. Sure enough, Sammie’s name had been crossed out and replaced with my nephew’s. He shares a name with my brother, so to distinguish himself as the current owner, he added his last initial. ‘Mike D.’ it read.

“I love these,” my mom said. “We have to save them so one day Daniel can add his name.” Daniel is my youngest nephew.

It was at a time when I saw my life slowly slipping away. I knew I was going to be okay, but I was also aware of how different everything would be. I was watching life as I knew it change in real time; I was searching for connections. In that moment, those scissors meant so much to me. They weren’t just scissors that we all used, they connected us in this weird, funny, tangible way. We had all needed them, and they were there for us. “I’ve been here,” they reminded me, but they also reminded me of the people who came after. The people that meant everything to me.

***

Recently the scissors came out again. My mom stood across from me and held them out sadly. The little piece of paper was missing.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Your dad took them to do something out back and the paper fell out. I searched everywhere but I can’t find it. It’s probably lost in the garden. I’m heartbroken.”

I had taken a picture of them the last time I was there and offered to print and cut it out to try to replace it. “Not the same,” she replied shaking her head.

My parents are moving at the end of the month. They’ve lived in that house for almost 39 years. My siblings and I grew up there, my niece and nephew did too. We ran through the backyard, we swam in the pool, we all were tasked with weeding the gardens at some point or another. I scrapbooked in that house, seated on the floor, cutting out reminders of a life lived. I stayed there when I was too weak from surgery and treatment to be on my own. And although I haven’t lived there for years, the number is still listed in my phone as ‘Home.’

I scrapbook differently now, and with fancier scissors. I love cutting out funny movie quotes and pictures and putting them in my journal. It keeps me going on the days when I don’t feel like slogging through. I don’t save them for long either, not like I used to. You know—Marie Kondo and everything. Sometimes I snap a picture of a particular page, but they’re usually gone the following year.

I thought I would put a printed version of all our names in the scissors anyway, just so my mom could take it with her to her new home hundreds of miles away, but I decided not to. They’re old, and I’m not sure they mean as much now. The scissors were ours, all of ours. I used them to scrapbook and preserve memories, my brother used them for school projects, my niece and nephew used them for whatever homework or art projects they had when staying at their grandparents’ house. They were used in the garden, to cut wallpaper, to remove threads off of shirts. They were ours and they belong to that house as much as we all do.

There’s not much of us that we leave in a place after we’re gone. New owners will come in and change the wall colors, and likely renovate at some point. The garden’s will never be the same, not without my mom. Sure, some of the flowers will come back, but the new owners won’t love gardening as much as she does—and those gardens were born out of love, not obligation. One day in the future I’ll drive by and it’ll be unrecognizable to me; my childhood home will be someone else’s. But somewhere in the yard there be a small scrap of paper, maybe it’ll be too dirty or washed out to read, but it will have the names of those who grew up there scribbled on it. We won’t forget.

We were here.