Show me the things you have kept, and I will know more about you, than you have ever told anyone. After my father died, I was sorting through his bedroom, in the drawer of the table next to his bed was a small wood box, probably a box a watch came in 75 years earlier. I had never seen it. In it was a silver ID bracelet, a gift he had received from his sister, and I never saw him wear. He was not one for wearing jewelry, a watch was about it. Also in there were the insignias from his army uniform. He was drafted near the end of World War II. He seldom talked about it. He went to basic training in Louisiana, then was stationed in New York and New Jersey for a year or so, then discharged and sent home. His seldom talking about it, leading me to think that it was a time that didn't really matter to him, then decades later I find those brass uniform icons. He had kept them. He was not a man to keep a lot, those meant something to him. Show me what you keep, and I will know more about you than you will ever tell me.
The photo above is a tiny corner of my cabinet of curiosities. The Leprechaun is a pencil sharpener, a gift from Uncle Dick's mother, I have had it since I was a child. She did a tour of Ireland and brought that back for me. She was very kind, and had the sweetest dachshund. Next to it is a bronze I bought in Iceland. The books behind that include my High School diploma, the only volume of my grandmother's diaries that I was able to save, and my father's pilot's log books. The flat red item, was the fob for my Capital Bikeshare membership, an important part of my commuting history in DC, and how I made it home the day of the earthquake. The blue glass vase behind the Leprechaun I bought from the glassblower in Ireland, as they were closing the shop for COVID, while were there they received a phone call telling them to close to the public. I have two shelves of little things that mean something to me, the tapestry of my life.
What is yours?
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