After New Year’s, we dragged up boxes from the basement.

Boxes cramped and overflowing with all the kid’s papers and projects.

Sunday school scribbles, glittered ABC’s, macaroni necklaces, wallet sized photos we forgot to hand out.

Math quizzes, birthday cards, drawings I labeled and dated before the kids could do it themselves.

I’d thrown nothing away since David was born.

It was time.

So I grabbed some trash bags and gave each kid an empty box to fill.

It wasn’t hard to figure out what to throw away (anything glitter),

but choosing what to keep for their boxes took some thought.

I asked the kids some questions to help them decide:

Does it show your personality?

Is there a special memory or time in your life attached to it that you want to remember?

Does it contain your original writing or thoughts?

Does it involve glitter?

Five trash bags later the kids sat proudly in front of their boxes.

Savannah loved her box so much that she tried to fit it under her bed.

When that didn’t work, she began filling her walls with as many masterpieces as she could fit.

I had an idea.

From each box, I helped the kids pick out their favorite pieces of artwork.

(I’m lying. They weren’t picking the best ones so I took over. Don’t judge. I’m in recovery.)

I had the kids stand in the middle of a wall while I taped up their artwork all around them.

Jonah’s wall was bright colors, jungle animals and goofy faces.

Savannah’s wall was hearts, rainbows and I love you mom’s.

David’s wall was signs, stories and invitations to come play.

It got me thinking, what if everyone had a wall?

A place to display the parts of ourselves that are worth more than boxes.

Our jungle brights, our rainbow hearts, our invitations to come play that are too important to throw away.

A place to sit and stare at who we once were and who we are becoming.

What if everyone had a wall?

What would we see?