By Lee Scott
The other day I was up in our attic pulling out my plastic bins filled with Christmas decorations. As I finished hauling them out, I discovered an old black trunk hidden under the eaves. It had been my daughter’s when she was in college. It came into my possession when she was moving into her first house. She did not want the old black trunk, but I decided it was the perfect container to store her old scrapbooks, trophies, and photo albums from when she was growing up. The trunk was moved from several houses and finally stored behind the Christmas boxes. It was time to drag it out and see what was in it.
As I sat there in front of the trunk, unloading all her memorabilia, I found three of her baby blankets. Two of them had been crocheted by friends and I did not want to get rid of them until she had children. (Obviously, those grandbabies never saw the pink and blue blankets.) But the old yellow blanket with the lions on it had no real value to anyone, except me. It was the blanket I once held my new born daughter in. But it was time to clean out the trunk and let the yellow blanket go.
I decided to donate it to the SPCA, knowing with the cold weather upon us they would probably need some blankets. It was better than having it sit in an old trunk.
When my daughter was in town during the Thanksgiving Holiday, she spotted the old yellow blanket.
“My blanket!,” she exclaimed. “Why is it in the trunk of your car?”
“Do you want it?” I asked. “It’s 40 years old and has been sitting in your old trunk for 19 years.”
“No, not really,” she said. “But what are you going to do with it?”
I explained to her about the local SPCA’s wishlist and the animals that need blankets. I also showed her the old bedspread and down comforter below the yellow blanket. I was sending those over, too. She said that she had some older linens at home that could go to the animal shelter in her area. She had not thought of donating them. I suggested she check her local shelter’s web page because they might have a different wishlist of their own, including dog bowls and food.
During these cold evenings when our rescue dog Brandy is lying on her own blanket in front of our fireplace, I think about those dogs. I like to think that there is one happy dog sleeping on my daughter’s old yellow blanket.
