Buttons (Blog Assignment #3)

There was once a little boy named Robert who found buttons really interesting, especially those with peculiar colors and shapes. Since he was eleven, he collected the buttons he liked the most and placed them in a jar. The special thing about the buttons he collected was not just their uniqueness or peculiarities, but what those buttons reminded him of. For example, when Robert was about five years old he had a favorite shirt. He wore his washed-off navy blue shirt with pride in his face. Of course, when he got older the shirt didn’t fit him anymore, so he pulled off one of the buttons of the shirt and kept it in his jar. He did the same with every “lucky” shirt he had over the years and also with one of his beloved grandfather’s old coats. He treasured his collection of buttons greatly because they were all significant to him.

Now, eighty-five years later, Robert has many, many jars full with very diverse-looking buttons from his past. He doesn’t collect buttons anymore, for he knows there is no point in collecting significant buttons from his present if he is not going to live enough to be able to actually call them “memories”. Instead, he now sits in his bedroom and plays with all of his acquired buttons with great joy. After all, they mean a lot to him and mostly now, since his wife passed away and has no one else besides his own self to spend time with. Every thing in his life he once had is now gone, his youth, his health, his energy, his family, everything except for his buttons, which he likes calling “memory aids”. By looking at his buttons Robert is able to remember the time of his life, or that special someone each one of them represent. Unfortunately, due to his starting Alzheimer’s symptoms he sometimes finds himself looking at buttons without being able to recall what they represent, but instead of beating himself up with frustration, he just grabs another button from his jars and looks at it patiently waiting for any memory to come to his mind.