People always talk about being materialistic; needing, wanting or having physical things to make our lives better (or to at least appear better). And most people would argue that you don’t need to things to be happy.
I’m not here to argue against that necessarily, but to suggest that sometimes there is value in ‘things’.
My Grandfather passed away in September of last year and it’s now come to the point where the contents of the house need to be shared between his children and the house needs to be sold.
Up until this point not many things had changed, apart from the obvious loss. There were still photos on the walls and a house left exactly the way that it was to be wandered around. But now things need to be sorted, separated, sold or just given away and it is more difficult than it sounds.
I was standing in the back yard the other day, while I was there collecting the fridge (not for sentimental reasons) and I realised that it was probably the last time I would ever be there. I can remember playing in that backyard when I was younger ( a backyard that seemed so much larger then) and being yelled at not to slam the back door or being tricked by my older cousins. And although the memories aren’t going anywhere there is still a sense of loss knowing that the place they were made is.
When there are seven siblings and many more grandchildren who have come and gone from the house over the past sixty years they all remember things differently. Some are reminded of their mothers (my grandmother’s) cooking when they look at vintage flour tins, others are reminded of their father’s life in war medals and jumpers. Some see memory or love in jewellery, books or napkins and some things are taken purely for their practicality in life (like fridges).
While I was looking through the cupboards at all the old dinner ware I felt like I needed to take as much as I could. I’d never seen my Grandmother use it and until that day I didn’t know half of it was in the cupboard but it was old and beautiful and I know that every time I use it I’ll be reminded that they used it for parties once too.
My mum keeps pointing out how much stuff there is every time we’re at the house and suggested to me that I should make a definitely pile and a maybe pile and at the end I could decide if the maybe pile was something I really needed or if I was just taking it because I felt like I needed too. Although half (if not more) of what’s in the house is just stuff and it can be given away, the giving it away is another loss in itself, once it’s gone it’s gone and sometimes in life there is no regret like the things you didn’t buy or the things you didn’t keep. We don’t need all the stuff that we have or keep, mum and her sisters definitely don’t need everything that’s left in the house, but the stuff whether singularly or as a whole reminds us of where it’s been, who had it and why we kept it and there is always value in that.
So while material things don’t make the world go round and they aren’t things that we need, they can be things that we want because they’re memories, they’re a time or a person that we remember when we see them even if we never use them! The tricky thing is realising that even with all the things that you keep for sentimental reasons, you’re grief will never be any less nor will your memories leave you any more quickly than nature would have it.
And maybe one day I’ll be getting ready for a party and I’ll come across the dinnerware that I kept and I won’t see the need for it anymore and maybe I’ll get rid of it because they’re just things but even at that point I’ll remember why I kept them in the first place and that in itself is valuable.
Ronnie 