What makes an impact on history? Take a look around you. Are they the things sitting on your desk, or in your purse at this very moment? They very well could be an object of interest in the next 50 years. That Excel gum package? The iPhone 4? Your beanie baby collection you were convinced would be worth something someday? Who knows. What are considered parts of history nowadays were most likely not even given a second thought years ago. Recently I have developed a fascination with antiquing. I don't go in search of a specific item, but usually when I see it, I know. Today I walked by a small display case perched on a rickety plastic table squeezed between a wooden duck and a doll that I'm pretty sure was directly from my nightmares. There, sitting in the case, alone and forgotten was a little booklet; "$3.00" said the price tag. I took a closer look and could see it was a food ration stamp book from WWII. I looked closer, "Name:" and in beautifully perfect, shaky cursive wrote, "Malcolm McPhearson" and then just directly under that read the line "Age if under 16", "14" he wrote. My heart sunk. 14 years old and Malcolm was living on food stamps in the height of the Second World War. What is even more devastating was the fact that the last 5 pages are untouched, I am hoping this means that the war ended before he needed the rest; I'm really hoping. At 14 Malcolm was living stamp to stamp, nowadays 14 year olds are angry if they don't get the latest iPhone. This thought alone is enough to make me sick. I don't know how that booklet made it all this way into a display case at an antique show in the middle of niagara, but all I knew, that I wasn't going to let Malcolm become forgotten. Now when I get wrapped up in material concerns or the "drama" of 2016 becomes overwhelming, I will look at his booklet and remember. Remember my gratefulness for food everyday, my home and the static state of the world. I will remember the scale of things and not lose sight of reality. It's too easy these days to get caught up in the mundane, and maybe that's good. Maybe the fact it is a good sign in your life that the biggest worry in your life is you can't return that jacket because it's one day past the 30 day return policy, or when you get 1 milk in your coffee instead of 2. Maybe we should be grateful for the mundane. But Malcolm didn't get to experience the mundane, he wasn't given that choice. He lived in a time of hate, hunger and confusion.
It is all too easy to forget our past, it is too easy to throw it in a drawer and forget these things existed, but we can't. Especially during the fragile state our world is in now, we can't forget what happened and how history can repeat itself. Take a leaf out of Malcolm's ration book and be grateful for every stamp you don't have to use. Thank you Malcolm for continuing to remind me to be grounded and grateful, wherever you are.
