I had to put one of my cats to sleep a few weeks ago so I've been pretty sad. As I bumble around the house I find things that remind me of him...his blanket still on my bed because I'm not ready to put it away just yet, his medications, all his special food. Leftovers. Then I realized just how much stuff I have that reminds me of people whose lives intersected with mine for awhile.

Many (large)plants from an ex-boyfriend who gave everything away, packed up and moved to Arizona two weeks after we got back from a vacation in Sedona. I'm not a plant person. They drop their leaves all over my living room floor. I have to remember to water them. And they take up a lot of space. I really don't want them but I don't have the heart to kill them. Leftovers.

I have a few small braided rugs in my kitchen that my Aunt Ruth made me. To say she was a frugal woman is an understatement. She was into recycling before the word was ever coined. I'm sure she went to tag sales, bought up all the wool clothing, cut it up and made it into rugs. Somebody else's leftovers recycled into leftovers for me. Aunt Ruth has been gone for a few years now but the rugs are wearing like iron. Unlike the plants they serve a purpose and I like them.

The crumbling steps outside were made by another ex-boyfriend. I liked those until they started to become a hazard. Actually I'm amazed they lasted as long as they did as he had a tendency to over reach his natural abilities. He's a surgeon now. Scary. But again, the steps are evidence of another intersection of two lives.

I wonder if other people have leftovers like this in their lives and if they look at them and remember where they came from and what their lives were like at the time of acquisition. These are all external, physical things but now that I think of it I have a lot of internal leftovers from people I have known...the generosity of my friend Jimmy who sadly passed on many years ago today...the wisdom of a former co-worker who always said the right thing to put things into perspective when I needed it...maybe leftovers is not the right word after all. Maybe legacy would be better. Except for the damned plants.