I love when things are handed down to me. Admittedly I didn’t care for receiving hand-me-downs as a kid - getting all of my older and larger sister’s clothes. But now I really appreciate getting handed down things like:
- My mother’s wedding silver
- My grandmother’s quilt
- My aunt’s tea set
- My mother-in-law’s dented pewter martini pitcher (over my husband’s objections although now he loves it)
I also like to keep the old stories so I can tell them over and over at family parties and so other people will remember them. Sometimes I may not have all the facts right, at least according to one of my sisters, but who cares if the stories get changed in the telling. We argue about it and laugh or harrumph and that is good enough.
My mother and I recently watched all three hours of my family’s digital movies. I recorded our conversation and now we all have her memories of my parent’s wedding, many holidays, birthdays and reminiscences of friends and family. I’ll keep that too.
I just recently came across a couple of very good New York Times stories about this subject that I’d recommend: