The Final Touch?

[It's a re-post, but it came to mind this morning]

I opened the shower door and reached for a towel this morning.  I barely open the door to avoid the cold air to enter and I am basically blindly picking an available towel.  My luck, I grabbed my favorite towel.  Yes, I have a favorite towel.  This piece of fabric has touched, wrapped and caressed my body since the age of 10.  This towel has gone with me to oh so many places of this wonderful planet and through a lot of life situations. 

My towel wears my most favorite color blue and displays my name on the bottom side.  It traveled with me eleven times to different places in Spain, touched a tip of Portugal, been thirteen times to France, rushed around a corner of Luxemburg,  seen the Netherlands, been all over Germany, enjoyed the water in Switzerland, gone to Austria, Hungry, Poland, has seen tons of America and the U.S. Virgin Islands as well as the B.V. I.’s.  

One can say, my towel and I are inseparable indeed.   It is not the prettiest towel you have ever seen, and it is not huge, nor fluffy.  Wrapping yourself in it does not make you feel as if you are in a spa.  It does not make you feel like soft hands are running all over your body.  None of these hold true for my towel, yet I don’t enjoy another towel more on my skin than this one.   And today, when unfolding my towel in the shower, I had to see, that my towel is succumbing old age.   A hole has formed in the middle of its body.  I have noticed that it has gone thinner over the years; dismissed it as typical wear and tear…  Seeing this hole makes me rather sad, as it only recalls the obvious.  Nothing is safe from getting old and eventually fading away. 

With this hole, memories are starting to fade away.   Often, I would just stay wrapped in my towel and dwell in memories of where we’ve been together or situation we have faced throughout the years.  This towel survived break-ups in which I would lose important documents, baby pictures and other memorabilia, but never did we get separated.   I never made the notion to make sure to safe this towel, it just always happened that way.  

Thirty years this towel was my loyal companion, my servant, my comfort.  Yet again I face the true nature of time.  The cruel presence of age.  And the realization that nothing is forever.