I know now why I didn’t purge until our pending move forced it upon me. It was the sight of our cupboard lying in the truck on its way to its new owners that brought it to light. Across the top of the cupboard was a sign, Give Thanks. The letters were faded, cut from simple construction paper years ago.

I knew the new owners wouldn’t benefit, but I couldn’t bear to remove it. Small hands cut those letters, small hands that have since grown large. The letters have been there through the change. Most days I barely noticed – other days I paused to remember. 

They take me back five years to when we first rented this place. In China, built-in cupboards are rare and since our new home had none, finding cupboards was top priority. I bought them at a second-hand furniture market and since there was only one delivery man, it was me who helped him drag them into the elevator and inside. Solid wood, they were unbelievably heavy and without the excitement of moving to a new province I wonder if I would have had the strength to move them. 

By putting them in place I made my mark on our new home. The delivery man left and, with my front door still open, a woman walked in. She was a neighbour, she said, as she wandered from room to room.

“How many bedrooms? Did you buy or rent? How much are you paying?” she said.

To have someone enter my home without asking would usually be offensive to me, but standing in the near empty apartment, dreaming of what it would be, I was happy to have someone to share with. 

It took time to have our belongings shipped and set up and, weeks later, taping the Give Thanks sign onto this cupboard marked the end of the work of our move and the beginning of our new life – our place was finally set up and we invited friends for Thanksgiving, our home’s debut. 

To prepare, I bought little gourds and pumpkins and set them around our new dining room. And I gathered my kids ‘round the table to cut the letters for this sign and glue them in place. We made a thanksgiving tree of barren branches and, as guests came, they wrote what they were thankful for on paper leaves cut by my kids, and tied them to the tree. 

It was the start of a new season, which is now coming to an end. A season for which I could now fill the branches of many thankfulness trees. 

Today I stand in the same apartment and again it’s nearly empty. The cupboards were the first items to enter, now they’re the last to leave. Instead of excitement, I feel emptiness. We’ve cleaned the apartment so well it looks sterile, like we’ve wiped all the life away.

It’s just Brian and I. The kids are old enough now that we’ve left them at our new place while we close this one up. We’re at the cliffhanger, savouring the beauty of the last chapter and filled with suspense for what will come next. But I can’t turn the page. 

While I’m excited for this new season I know it will be so different from the last. As I turned each page, my kids changed – they no longer cuddle close when a movie is scary.

I can’t fill my next home with the moments this one holds.

It was painful to purge. While piles of papers and ads are easy to get rid of, mixed in are the memories that take me to a place I can’t access on my own. A math book that I helped my child through, page after page, problem after problem. A drawing, a craft. It’s not the possessions I want, it’s to slip back in time, to again be cutting those letters with my children, to hear their small voices ask me to help them glue the letters. 

Now I know I was wrong letting them drive away with the Give Thanks sign. I convinced myself it was only faded paper but it wasn’t. It was a key that unlocked the door to times gone.