The Things We Save

My grandmother just passed away. She was 94. She was an incredibly loving woman. She'd tell you she loved you within 5 minutes of meeting you. And she'd feed you. I spent one summer with her and gained 30 pounds. I didn't have a weight problem before then, but I did after that summer. Food was how she showed her love.

We were going through her house, looking through her stuff. My uncle wanted my sister and I to take things that we wanted, before his wife and son went through and wholesale tossed stuff. My grandmother didn't have much in the way of belongings. My mom thought it was incredibly sad. I told her that my grandmother gave away everything. She didn't have a need for *stuff*. She had a need to take care of others. If she had something, she'd give it away. Still, there was things that she'd kept. ALL of it was sentimental.

My sister took things that would have a purpose aside from memories (dishes/stuff for her 5th wheel, and a serger). She did take my grandmother's cowboy boots. They'd probably fit my feet, but I couldn't get my calves in them.

I took memories. And hats. I came home with this great little mink 'hat' and collar. Her cowboy hat was too small, but my mom is having it stretched, blocked, cleaned, and a new band put in. She's sending all sorts of things that I couldn't take with me - darned plane ride. I have pictures that were of me and my grandmother (and her twin sister) in Cozumel when I was 10 (they were 70). She also kept spare change from that trip - so I have her old pesos. She kept British pence from her trip to London. I have all of her old gospel hymnals that are crumbling away. She took me to church when I was a child, and I have fond memories of those old-time gospel hymns.

I took back a mug that I gave her (it has our tribal seal on it). Inside it was a buckeye. I have that, too. I even have a hat that was part of my uncle's Army National Guard uniform that she had kept.

She kept everything from old newspapers (one from Kennedy's assassination), to old aprons (the type that used to be worn for fashion), to a hundred different recipes written by hand (stuffed in coffee mugs), to jars of old, canned fruit, to notes that my sister and I wrote when we were children (one of them was the lyrics to John Denver's "Grandma's Feather Bed").

Why do we keep the things we keep? Is it memories? Is it future usefulness? Is it stubbornness? Laziness? I wonder what my house will say about me when I'm her age. Will it have great memories? Will it have useful things to pass on? Will my son (and hopefully a wife and children) look back on my things and smile as I did with my grandmother's things?

I'm a sentimental person. I have things and memories. I'll put my great, great grandmother's cast-iron tea pot most likely next to the cedar chest my deceased uncle made when he was in school (he passed away when I was 10 but we had a great relationship). I'll wear my grandmother's cowboy hat for the hell of it and smile, remembering the loving woman that she always was. And I'll remember one of things that she said to me (and my family), time and time again, "I worship the ground you walk on." And, hopefully, I'll smile.