Clothes were left where they were taken off. Books, magazines and newspapers, where they were last read. Food, where it were last eaten. All strewn throughout not only her bedroom, but also the rest of the house.

I’m the type who has a place for every thing –those things may clutter my and others’ space for awhile, but those things generally will find their place. Susan is the type who has no particular place for any thing, but her things are never clutter because she’ll stick them any place she happens to be to get them out of sight.

Perhaps because of indecision about which parent’s style to follow or, more likely, rebellion against both, Meredith was never neat. We hoped that, when she became a cadet, the Air Force Academy would change that. Indeed, Meredith’s room at the Academy was totally neat and organized  . . . only because she had everything she wore or used jammed away in a locker she was assigned as a member of the swim team.

During the summer after her graduation, she stayed in our Colorado home while taking preparatory lessons to begin pilot training. When we would return home, we couldn’t walk from any room to the other without having to side-step her clutter. Anything, including your hand, placed on a counter would stick it. Dust rolled around the floor like sagebrush in a western prairie.

Her sense of orderliness – or, in our view, lack thereof – did have some benefits to her. Our car was robbed during a family vacation in Costa Rica while she was younger. The rest of us who had our possessions put away into suitcases lost everything. Meredith who had her things scattered throughout the car, lost nothing.

Slowly her orderliness has changed (albeit seemingly as slow as a glacier moves). Susan and I began noticing that her apartment was relatively clutter-free and things were in a logical place. Even her car, which in the past contained year-old newspapers, sales’ receipts, used Starbuck Styrofoam cups, crumbs from long-ago snacks, was relatively clean.

Then last Friday night we receive her call asking, accusingly and with agitation, “Where’s my Zagat Survey book?” Meredith had used the Survey to find a place for us during our last visit to D.C., and the last we saw, she had it in her hands in her own apartment. Later, when we asked about the book in another conversation, Meredith responded, “Oh, it’s okay, I couldn’t find it because I put it away where it belongs.”

I pray the child remembers to look where things belong rather than revert to her old ways!