The Oldest Wedding Present

Denisa and I have been married for seventeen years. And for those entire seventeen years, we’ve been toting around a wedding present, between four moves, across the entire country, switching it between floors and different storage places. What was it? A floor length mirror you could mount on the wall. At first we were living in apartments where we couldn’t put stuff on the walls. And then we didn’t have an immediately appealing place to put it in our house.

But then we finished our bathroom, and there was a blank wall right there, waiting for the wedding present to finally be used.

I’m pleased to say that yesterday, 6,376 days after our marriage, I finally attached that mirror to a wall. True, the mounting hardware had long been lost, so I had to make a special trip to the hardware store to get some. And I used the help of my fourteen year old son to hold it in place while I attached it.

Thinking back on everything that’s happened since we got that mirror, I’m amazed we held onto it that long, and that it didn’t break. It never had a huge, sturdy box. Just some thin cardboard. It’s five feet long, and just made of glass, so it’s not like it should have held up against the tests of time. And it only costs around $30 today, so it’s not even necessarily something you’d put in a “Let’s Make Sure We Hold Onto That” category. We ditched our television when we moved across the country, for example. I guarantee that was worth more.

And yet somehow it’s been there, kicking around in that old box, the entire time. We moved it gently each time, paying attention to where we were storing it and how it was treated. There’s probably a life lesson to be said there, though I won’t take the time to say it. (Because you could just as easily say what worth is something when it’s hidden away the entire time, never opened, always pristine, and left unused?)

I’m just happy the mirror is mounted and usable now. (At the right height, as well, seeing as how most floor length mirrors get mounted by people who are a bit shorter than Denisa and I . . .)

I think that’s the last wedding present we’ve had kicking around that we haven’t used and didn’t ditch. How about you? Got any you still haven’t found just the right place for?

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