I was more emotional than I realized

The last two days, Andrew and I have been doing some work...a lot of work...in our garages (we have an attached garage and a detached garage).  For almost two years, we've had this vision of turning our attached garage into a very informal (and loosely "designed") rec room.  We have a ping pong table in there and have a love seat we've had in storage that we can put in there.  However, not only do things have to be organized, we need to get rid of a lot of things.  In spite of my sentimental emotional nature, I've been pretty good about getting rid of things.  We've had two full trash bins and Andrew has made three trips to Goodwill.  There is still even more that is going to be donated or pitched, but we've made a really good start the last two days.  Last evening Catherine walked into ask what to do with her Mickey Mouse ears that she didn't want anymore.  I've put a few special things into storage, and told her to add those to that pile.  Andrew insisted they could be thrown away, but I told her to put them in the storage pile.  Andrew called me ridiculous, and tears just started rolling down my face.  I know that it might seem ridiculous, but I just couldn't let her get rid of one of my favorite memories of her wearing those ears.  It was on a vacation and she was just six.  It was a vacation that was supposed to be with my parents on a trip for the entire family, paid for by my dad's boss.  My dad ended up being hospitalized, and my gang and my sister went without our parents.  Overall, I just couldn't bring myself to get rid of the ears that I associated not only with childhood, but with my Dad.  I miss my dad so very, very much, and with Robert turning seventeen before too long, I am also realizing the days with my family safely under this cozy roof are very, very limited.  I am trying so hard to treasure each and every one of them!