Burning House

Name: Stephanie De los Santos

Age:  29 (yeah, not really)

Location:  Austin, TX

Occupation:  Teacher

Website:  stephieteach.wordpress.com

• Macbook
• Iphone 6 plus
• Grimm’s Fairy Tales book
• Box of old pictures
• Parents’ wedding album
• Our engagement and wedding pics
• My wedding dress
• My 380 hand gun
• Dad’s army jacket and flannel shirt
• Girls’ bag of pre-adoption and adoption day stuff
• Bag of watches and rings
• My famous quote blanket
• Passport
• Adoption decree and other legal docs
• Purse
• Box of letters from Dad and Grandma
• Canon Rebel XTi DSLR Camera
• External hard drive and USB drives
• iPad
• Pink Kipling bag and Kipling backpack

The items on my list fall into three categories: valuable, sentimental, necessary and irreplaceable.  My valuables include the phone, computer, camera, ipad, watches and rings, purse, and Kipling bags.  I learned to love Kipling products while living in Hong Kong, and, to be honest, I have a mild obsession with bags.  Electronics provide an opportunity to be productive, creative, and connected, and it would be difficult to replace those costly items.  My watches?  Obsession again, especially with the Movado brand.

Sentimental items include the Grimm’s Fairy Tales book that my dad read to my brother and me every night when we were small. The blanket was my husband’s first successful attempt to buy me a present that I actually loved.  My husband surprised me with the Louis Vuitton purse and actually brought me to tears.  The wedding dress was hand-made for my by my sweet mother who did not even get to attend the wedding because the venue was in a foreign country.

My passport, phone, adoption decree and legal documents are all necessary, and living without them would complicate my life immeasurably.

Finally, my irreplaceables.  Pictures are a window to the past and reminders of treasured moments and people that add layers of meaning to my life.  My dad’s army jacket reveals the kind of man my dad was.  I am proud to be his daughter and proud that he selflessly served his country.  A hint of his scent still lingers on his flannel shirt that I keep hanging in my closet. Letters from my dad and others from my grandma are irreplaceable words from the past that echo into the present.  These letters resurrect their personalities, their fears, their hopes, and their love.   And saved on my hard drives, in addition to pictures, my words in the form of poetry, short stories, and a novel preserve my personality, my fears, my hopes, and my love for the next generation.

*inspired by theburninghouse.com