it isn’t the cost of the item; it’s usually the memory you buy
I’ve been thinking quite a bit lately about things we treasure and things we need to keep and want to buy.
my husband spied a small milk jug one day in a bargain store. it was just a quart milk pitcher, worn and scuffed from years of use, glass, with a handle. it was just a small pitcher. he had to have it. he said it would be to keep our milk in, in the fridge. women all over the world know why that open pitcher to keep milk in is not a great idea. additionally, the only time he used milk was if he had cereal in the mornings. I was the one who drank milk. we got the pitcher. once I had washed it, he dutifully poured our milk out of the milk carton and into the old glass pitcher. there! the trace of a smile went across his mouth. all was well in his world. mine was less well.
I once picked up a ‘hostess set’ that was 8 glasses in a heavy chrome basket. the glasses all matched. the chrome basket was ageless to me. I had to own it and the price was great. I use it for water glasses and iced tea glasses when my guests come for dinner.
a good friend of mine has a ’sprinkler bottle’ to sprinkle her clothes before she irons them. most of us remember those. our mom’s and our grandmother’s all used them. once in a while you’ll find that little bottle top, cork intact, with holes all over the opening. we know immediately what it is for but our kids don’t understand.
the odd thing to me is that we are picking up nostalgia. not JUST nostalgia, but nostalgia from our childhood, and usually from our mothers.
his memory of the milk pitcher was the one always in the fridge when he came home from school. my memory was of my mother hosting her bridge parties, white gloves, nice card table, coffee service nearby and the glasses with ice, for lemonade or iced tea, in their carrier.
my friend remembers her mother ironing and teaching her to iron her fathers’ hankies. her parents both passed away too young and I can understand her holding onto things like this.
interestingly, after the first use of the milk pitcher, it was relegated to the shelf, by my husband. I use the hostess glasses and carrier sometimes but not as often. my girlfriend never irons. not anything.
none wants to let go of those silly items. it would almost be letting go of our parents or our childhood again. my mom has passed. I want anything to remind me of her presence. my husbands’ mother is still with us but he doesn’t want the pitcher discarded, he just doesn’t want to use it after all. when he began packing, I offered it to him. it still sits on the shelf. my girlfriend has the stopper to the water bottle in her china cabinet, with her other treasures. close but not in use.
until very recently I had a pair of my mothers and my step dad’s tennis shoes. they used to come visit me at least once a year and we all three loved to garden. instead of carrying the shoes back and forth, dirty with soil and mud, they each left a pair. I was unable to let my mother’s sneakers go, after she passed. I needed that reminder. I needed to see them and realize she might be attached to them in some way, therefore to me.
watching a show on tv one day I heard someone remind me of what we all know: they are not in ‘the things’. they are all in our hearts. they live within us. we dont’ need the sneakers, the pitchers, the sprinkler tops. we just need our open loving hearts. I think we all have that, don’t you? that doesn’t mean that anyone should rush another to discard something precious in their own minds. we’ll manage that in our own way eventually. but my mothers tennis shoes and her husbands both went to a soup kitchen not long ago. they both volunteered all of their lives and so have I. when I walked in with them, a man and woman immediately asked if they were for someone special. of course they were. a man and a woman who needed better shoes. worn, but still able to serve as footware.
I know my parents smiled. I smiled. the man and woman smiled. we all felt just a little better. and, just as I had expected, it didn’t make me lose my mom or dad all over again. it made them go even further in my lifetime.
I’m not sure how much longer I’ll keep my hostess set. I do recognize that I’m keeping it because it makes me smile. the shoes somehow made me sad. now absent, they make me feel good.
I found myself looking at some old cookie cutters recently at a thrift store. my mom had them all. we baked cookies together. my stepdaughter and I did likewise a few times. now, I make cookies occasionally but oh those cookie cutters were calling me. as I stood there, handling the few that I have somehow lost, knowing I could again have all of the ones my mom used to have I glanced out the store window. there was a family standing across the alley at a restaurant back door, near the dumpster. a man, woman and 2 children. the man and the little girl wore shoes I could easily recognize. I smiled again, tears popped into my eyes as I put the cookie cutters down. walking to my car I swelled with the love of my family and again felt that smile.
the next day I made cookies. I made every shape possible. I spent hours baking. then, I took 5 dozen cookies to the soup kitchen, with 4 more pairs of sneakers I had stopped wearing years earlier and ’saved’. everything made sense. the cookie cutters didn’t know they were missing some of their counterparts. I didn’t notice that I was missing old sneakers. I just noticed the warm feeling I had inside, all the way down to my toes when I sat down, drinking milk out of my hostess glass and eating leftover cookies.
sometimes all you really need is love.
This entry was posted on Sunday, October 18th, 2009 at 7:01 pm and is filed under fear, giving, leading by example, loss, loyalty in relationships, marriage, necessity, sharing, smart shopping, timing is everything. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.