Resolving loss from aging

THE REST OF THE STORY
Getting to be older is frightening. It means loss. Loss of personal belongings that remind one of the past. Loss of old mementos is inevitable as I down size my worldly possessions. This week my allergic husband wants me to get rid of my father's Siberian horse blanket. It is of unknown fiber - possibly anything from reindeer, dog, camel, goat, or yak or a combination of all plus a little grass that got spun into the yarn by some herdsman tending his flock. The blanket still smells faintly of the Asian high plateaus. How can I get rid of a precious family heirloom? Even if I manage to keep it, it will not hold together for long. Its warp of rotten cotton is breaking apart. I want to see it every day because it is memories of my father.

The blanket was rugged masculine beauty. Father brought it out of Asia (our families adopted home for generations). When he arrived here to study at the University of California, Berkeley in 1929, father came as a true olden times Asian traveler with this blanket and the clothes he was wearing.

What was once a tragedy is now an opportunity to write a creative story and paint a fantasy.