My grandparents were old by the time I met them. Maybe that seems like a somewhat obvious statement, but they had my father at a pretty late age so by the time he had me, the generational gap was pretty big. I've known people who got the meet their great grandparents and those who became a grandparent by the time they were forty. So with my grandparents being so much older than me when I went to visit it was a little bit like going back in time. They lived on a non-operational dairy farm, having retired long before I was born. While I was there I got to see not only how my father grew up, but also caught a glimpse of a world that was quickly fading away. Most of this came from the various pieces of the past that they still owned. Even the house they lived in had been in the family for nearly a century. It was a strange idea to me that things could last that long and be passed along to the next generation.
What makes something an heirloom? There are a few things in our lives that when we get them for the first time, we know are going to be important to us. A wedding dress. A ornament for a child's first Christmas. A piece of furniture. Some of them seem somewhat obvious when you look at them. Then there are those every day objects that we come by that just fill our lives. We can't always predict what things we gather will last through to the next generation. Nor can we foresee what that next generation will find important. When my grandmother died she left behind a house full of items. My parents spent several weeks sifting through it, trying to figure out what exactly to do with it all. Most of the stuff could probably be considered trivial to an outsider. To my father and his sister it could have greater meaning so deciding what to do with it all may have seemed a little overwhelming. For me I knew that the people and place I remembered were forever gone so if I could have even a little reminder of what was, that might be enough. Actually every day I carry around something from my grandparents' home. It was one of the few things that I thought to make sure wasn't lost. I call it A Key to a Door That Doesn't Exist. Some days I remember its significance, but most of the time it falls to the background, like so many of the things in our lives.
While growing up there are a lot of things we take for granted. It's only later that we realize those little things that we just assumed would be there were important to us. Some people don't want to look back. They don't want to remember that part of their life for various reasons. Others feel an almost indescribable need to hang onto pieces of their past. If they keep the object, they somehow keep the memory. I guess I can see it both ways. We sometimes pick strange objects to feel an attachment towards. Very recently a friend of mine sent me a collection of books that I hadn't owned in twenty years. I had considered them to be lost. Actually I had assumed that they were gone, as many things from our past tend to be. When I originally bought the books all those years ago I didn't think that they would be all the important to me. Sure I enjoyed them and collected as many of them as I could at the time. Eventually my interests changed and I gave them away to my friend, who also enjoyed them. Thankfully he took better care in keeping than I did. Now that I have them again, I can only think that it's important that I make sure they're preserved, if only for the sake of the memories they represent.
It's those links to our past that somehow become more important as we get older. We may have our own lives far removed from where we originated from. We may even have our own children and are unknowingly coming into possession of something that could be passed down for the next several generations. It's strange to me because with only a few exceptions everything I own feels somewhat disposable. Most of the stuff we own will ultimately be tossed aside at various points in our lives. There are some things we gather up that become precious. I think the item itself is only a representation of the memory behind it. That's not to say that the object is unimportant, but it's really the past that has value to us.
