Being sentimental?
What do we do with all the stuff we accumulate in our lives? We just keep stuff and as long as we have the space stuff stays in the house. Actually, it would be good to have limited space because then we would have to get rid of stuff. My brother now gets rid of objects when he buys a replacement, even though the old item may be functional.
I still have stuff from my children who had left years ago; their skis had been in our basement for years because we thought they may come home and then the skis would be useful, so why dump them? But, when they come today, they rent skis since the technology has changed and the new skis are much better than the old ones. When he was in high school, my younger son fixed up the far end of the basement as his bedroom as he wanted to get away from us and his bed is still there, altho neither he nor anyone else has used that bed in decades.
And I inherited my parents’ furniture when they passed away; my brother, the executor, wanted to give all of it away to charity, but I thought we should keep it for the year before we get rid of the furniture and other objects. Why did I do that? I had some sentimental feelings about the old furniture that I knew well and was not ready to part with them. So I have all their furniture in the basement since we have space. Right? I have given some furniture to my children who needed a table, for example, but I have four chairs plus three coffee tables and other stuff still in the basement. What is more challenging is to figure out what to do with my parents’ photo albums? You may think that there are many important old pictures, but I gave them most of those pictures, focusing on my children growing up, but there were a few old pictures of my grandparents. And now all the pictures are on google in the sky. So what am I to do with all the albums? Another set of items is my father’s diplomas from the old country and from Canada, all framed. I am sentimental and thought how and why would I get rid of them? They signify years of education and history; my father graduated in medicine in Budapest in 1939 and he went on to the Sorbonne to get further education in internal medicine and there is the French diploma. By the way, the old Hungarian diploma is in Latin which I find interesting. And then father took his Canadian certificates of medicine and professional licenses and now I inherited I think seven framed diplomas and licenses. What do I do with all these historical papers? I think of the labor that went into the studies and experiences that father had gone through to get all these achievements. If I get rid of these papers, a part of history disappears, at least in my mind. Is this what we do with history?
Not only the diplomas that bother me but also the paintings that my father collected; I have some cow pictures, all original and framed. My father liked animals coming from a farm and cows were his choice for pictures. The one unique picture that I inherited is a large, framed original landscape that has a few bullet holes in it, repaired by professionals so you cannot see them unless you look at the backside of the picture. I cannot figure out where the picture was when the bullets hit, but it must have been during the second world war and in Budapest when the Russians were bombing the city.
I thought about all the stuff that we have and thought that my children may like to have some paintings my father had and took pictures of them and sent them to my older son to see if it might interest him in some of them. He may have an interest or the sentimentality to have my father’s pictures. Well, I have not heard and when I asked him he said that he is busy and altho interested in some of them; he has not had the time to pick some. Now I do not want to just get rid of these pictures and if he does not want them, then I‘ll keep them for someone else. I also understand he has many pictures on the walls of his home and also that cow pictures may not fit the motifs of his house at all. So here we are, no takers. I offered the same pictures to my younger son, and he showed an interest in the bullet holed picture but otherwise, cows are not in his mindset as pictures for his walls. I may have to see if it may interest my daughter in the pictures, next. The bottom line is, no one may be interested in possessions from the old country. The younger generation and their lifestyles are more IKEA and disposable items than keeping pictures.
I do not think that I am unique in trying to tackle what to do with old items in the house; talking with friends they call the experience of being rebuffed by their children in accepting old furniture and even dishes. I feel it is sad that we accumulated some stuff that I feel is memorable only to be disposed of because nobody wants them. We lose some history, but that is the way this is going.
andrasthehun.ca 