When my daughter Sara was in the fifth grade，she came to me with a problem.“Marcy hates me！” she cried.“Because Kathy is my friend，too. She wants me to be her friend and nobody else’s. You talk to Marcy.You tell her that I want to be her friend，but I can have other friends，too！”

Oh！I looked at her for a few moments，wondering how I got into this mess，when suddenly an idea came to me.

Picking up two baskets from the living room，I explained，“When everyone is born，he or she has a little basket. This little one here is yours. The big one is mine. As you grow，so does the basket. You can see your little basket is inside mine because when you were born，there were too many things you couldn’t do for yourself. I did everything you couldn’t do on your own.”She nodded.

“Well，as you grew older and began to do some things on your own，I began placing a few more things in your basket. When you learned to tie your shoes，that went in your basket.”

She said softly，“I can tie my own shoes.”

“Right. As you grow older，there will be more and more things you must do on your own.” As I spoke，I gradually took her basket out of mine and handed it to her.“You will finally carry your own basket with things only you can do.”

She looked up at me and said，“I understand. There are some things that I have to do for myself because they are in my basket.”

I grew up in the 1950s with very practical parents. My mother washed aluminum foil (铝箔纸) after she cooked in it, and then she reused it.She was the earliest recycle (回收利用) queen before people had a name for it.

My father was no different.He preferred getting old shoes fixed to buying new ones.Their marriage was good and their dreams were focused (集中).Their best friends lived just a wave away.Though my parents have passed away,I can see them now-Dad in trousers,a T-shirt and a hat and Mom in a house dress,lawnmower (割草机) in one hand and dishtowel in the other.

It was the time to fix things-a curtain rod (挂帘杆) the kitchen radio, the screen door, the oven door, and so on. They fixed all things we had.It was a way of life,and sometimes it made me crazy.All that re-fixing and renewing made me want to scream.I wanted just once to be wasteful.Waste meant being rich.Throwing things away meant you knew there’d always be more.I often thought like that.

But then my mother died,and on that clear summer night,in the warmth of the hospital room,I learnt that sometimes there isn’t any more.Sometimes,what we care about most gets all used up and goes away and it will never return. So, while we have it, it is the best that we love it,care for it,fix it when it’s broken and cure it when it’s sick.

This is true for marriage,old cars,children with bad report cards,dogs with bad hips and aging parents and grandparents.We keep them because they are worth it and because we are worth it.