Passed on

  I got out some of my holiday decorations. These are what I think of as fall/thanksgiving decorations. I do not decorate as much as I did in years past. Now that I'm a great grandfather the "kids" have all long since been on their own and the grandchildren are as well. Grandpa's house just isn't the same anymore, just us two old people living here. But still I have those decorations that I do treasure. The majority of them are hand made items. My wife crochets and so a great deal of them are made in that fashion. I "help" with what I can, gluing googly eyes on or making a stand for them. I made a small display of them yesterday.

  This morning as we were having our morning coffee we began talking about those treasures. We do have a good number of like items that we inherited over the years. Hand made items from grandmothers, a great uncle, my mom, my wife's sister and a few other ancestors. I'm not sure how that came to be but I seem to be the one that collects these things. They gravitate to me. I have written a couple of blog postings about that. I am concerned about what will happen to those things after I'm gone. I can't bear to think they would wind up at a Goodwill store or the landfill. My wife suggested we should start giving some of things to family members. Pass them on. My immediate reaction to that is, after I pass on! Giving them away today seems a bit premature to my way of thinking.

  I do make a conscious effort to tell others about my treasures. I even started making a catalogue of them, a sort of journal explaining what each item is, what it means to me and who it originally belonged to. But that was a project I started and it stalled somewhere along the way. I don't know where that journal even is at this time. The thing is, the vast majority of the items belonged to people that my family members never met or knew. I was in the Navy for twenty years and moving about. I didn't return to my hometown after that, there was no hallmark moments like on those television specials. As a result what my family hears are just stories of some old people that I knew. And none of them were famous in any way, just regular folks. Just names without faces. 

  I have done quite a bit of work on the family tree. I have gathered photographs of all the ancestors. I have been lucky enough to have gotten a few through the computer from others on Ancestry. Distant relatives of mine that I didn't know about. I was happy to put those faces with the names. It somehow seems to make the person real. It's strange how that can make me feel like I am familiar with them. Grandmother Clara, Grandmother Kathleen and my third great grandfather Abraham. All gone long before my birth but now at home with me and I feel like I know them. It has made me aware how you can become attach to "objects" when you know who owned that object. It's like having apiece of them somehow.

  Thanksgiving and Christmas are the sentimental holidays for me. The focus is on the past more so than just a celebration. I think that is probably true for most of us. I remember more about Thanksgiving and Christmas than I do of any other holidays on the calendar. It's the big dinner and the big morning. It was special as a child when I had to get dressed up for dinner, we used the special dishes, and you got to eat whatever you liked, not necessarily those vegetables. When I was a kid football hadn't become a part of any of that celebration. Dinner was usually about three in the afternoon. And Christmas was surely an exciting time and those mornings are etched in my memories. Yes it is a sentimental time from Halloween to New Years day. 

  Wouldn't it be great if you could pass on those memories. But you can't, they are uniquely your own to be enjoyed and shared with others. That's what those treasures mean to me. They are a means to pass on my memories, hopefully to be repeated to future generations. It's a selfish thing really, but not a bad thing in this case. There are times when we should be selfish. Sentiment shouldn't make you sad, it should enrich you. Sentiment should be like a warm blanket, comforting. I understand that isn't always the case with some folks. I do want to pass those memories and sentiments on, I just want to wait until I'm passed to do it. Hopefully that won't be too late.