Refrigerator Love

Our refrigerator is getting some age on it and soon it will be time to replace it.  I dread that time because I remember how hard it was for me when we replaced the last one.   My wife and I have been married 40 years and we have replaced only one refrigerator.

When we replaced it, it was on its very last leg.  A noise came from it that began with a low hum then slowly progressed into something that sounded like someone banging a hammer on an anvil while a jet raced down a runway.  We were always having to explain the noise to any company that visited us.  "It's our refrigerator.  We are going to replace it."  But we lived with that noise for years!

Why?  It was not a very spacious refrigerator.  No ice maker.  But, I had my reasons for keeping it.  It was part of the family.  It was here before we were here.  It welcomed us into our new home, even though it had been rejected by the family that had moved away.  It served us well, providing us with food and cold drinks when we needed them.

But, most of all that refrigerator was rooted in the memories of our children; our children learning that they could open it, gaining access to forbidden foods such as soft drinks and desserts; our children, their faces lit by the light of refrigerator, searching for something just beyond their reach, standing on tip toe in their onesie pj's.; me, getting the ice trays from the freezer and making slushies using our ice crusher as watchful little eyes followed my every move; me, holding my children up so they could find their favorite juice.

And when the delivery men came with the new, spacious, modern refrigerator with an ice maker and carried our old, empty one out the door, it was as if they were carrying a coffin that contained part of my life within it.

It is funny how we give life and love to an inanimate object.  But I swear to you, some mornings when that refrigerator began to hum, I know that it was a love song.