As those of you who have been with me for a while know my grandmother passed away back in February. I at one point was very close to my grandmother, but for many reasons that I have touched on in the past, we were not close in the end. It in no way means I was not devastated when she finally passed on. As it turns out I am a very caring and sensitive person.
As such, I am also and incredibly sentimental person. I get this trait from my mother, and I personally think it is a fine trait to have. Sure I cry at sappy Hallmark commercials, but there are much worse things in the world than getting choked up over something that evokes an old memory or a strong emotion.
My mother has been working for the last few months with her sister on my grandmothers estate. I have to imagine the worst part of anyone that close to you dying is having to sift through their personal belongings. I can not imagine that I would be able to do it without being constantly in tears, because I am very sentimental.
My mother, being just like me, I know is having a hard time of it. My Aunt is far less sentimental and thinks my mother is being ridiculous. I know my mother though. I know she looks at something as simple as the old sugar scoop and is overtaken by emotion. To my Aunt it is just a plastic scoop with a broken handle, but she is wrong it is so much more than that.
That sugar scoop represents so much more than that. It is a thousand batches of chocolate chip cookies for Christmas, and hundreds of batches of peanut brittle, and a million bowls of rice crispies for breakfast as we grew up. It represents the wonderful moments that we all shared in that kitchen together as a family. It is a trigger to all those wonderful memories.
Sure it is just a sugar scoop, and a good one at that, but it isn't what it is, it is what it represents. The same thing with old pictures. Sure you may not really remember the people or the events, but they are significant. If you simply toss them aside you are just throwing away memories. It is like you are throwing away a part of them.
Just because someone else doesn't understand a sentimental point of view doesn't make it wrong. If you want to keep an old napkin from a cocktail party because it was where you met your husband, that doesn't make you a hoarder, it makes you sentimental. And if when your mother passes away you want to keep the cocktail napkin that she had, there is nothing wrong with that either.
It isn't a bunch of crap. It is part of someones life. It is part of your life too.
It is a good thing to show your heart sometimes. Call me silly, call me a hoarder, call me what you like, it won't stop me from being this way.
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