Gratitude for Little Trinkets with Little Stories
Today I made my Christmas list out. I don’t have a lot of money to spend, so I thought I would give away things of mine that mean something to me and have a little story behind them for special friends and family.
I have a special box with little things in it…things like menus of restaurants that my friends and I went to, or matchbook covers from a bar that we had a good time in. I have books, and just a box full of trinkets that make me smile…a chipped tea cup from my grandmothers house, an old favorite earring of my mothers, silly things, but things that have a story. I told Missy that I wanted to box them up pretty and write down what their story was.
Missy frowned at me and said, “Oh mommy…those are your memories, your special things, they will never mean as much to someone else because they are your memories of your friends and your good times.” I thought about that and thought she was right…who would want my old matchbook covers or little handkerchiefs? It’s really not the item, it’s all the memories that go along with it.
That’s why I hate Alzheimer’s…its a disease that makes a person just a being…when you take away their stories, their memories…their joy of remembering….you just have the shell of that person.
I have kinda become like my little box of trinkets…when I forget those stories…they will be like me in the future…just some trinkets, like me a body with no stories, no memories, a stranger will meet me in the future and just see a person with Alzheimer’s. They wont know my stories. If a stranger found my box of trinkets, they wouldn’t know the love, the fun, the memories in them.
I remember when Missy was little, when her daddy and I would go out I always wore my special earrings. Missy loved those earrings, when I would be getting ready to go out, she would put them on…and then put them on me. I only have one of those earrings left, over the years I lost one. I wrote on a little piece of paper today that I want Missy to have that one earring and reminded her of how she always loved to wear them…I couldn’t wait till Christmas, so I gave it to her today. It made her cry. She loved it and she said, “Okay mommy, you are right…tomorrow, we will start writing out your little stories and attach them to your trinkets. They will make wonderful wonderful Christmas gifts to your special friends and family.”
I thought after that, that all of us should do that. Don’t leave your treasures in a box for your family to find…write on it what each treasure and trinket means to you. I am wondering if my grandson will love the little rock that he gave me when he was 5. It’s just a little rock, but I have kept it for almost 30 years.
Just trinkets, but they all have a story…just like every person with Alzheimer’s, we all have a little story.
