I Am Very Sentimental, How About You?

I am a very sentimental person. I keep everything that is possible to save, and some things much too large to keep. I can't remember when I first started this habit of safekeeping in the name of sentimentality by saving the precious bits and pieces of my life and of those near and dear to me.

When I started dating the man who would become my husband, I must have known our lives would be forever entwined because I saved the ticket stub from our first date at the movies. All during our courtship I saved every cocktail napkin, every concert ticket stub, every flower; everything that had to do "with us". I tucked these away in my dresser drawer. After we married, I bought a big scrapbook, and placed every little token of our love in place chronologically. That scrapbook was the beginning of what my family knows as our Family Albums. I keep one for each year. My four children are all grown now, and I am blessed with seven Grandchildren and one Great Granddaughter. I love it when one of them comes to my house and pulls down an album to look at their baby pictures. They can spend hours going through the albums and remembering happy times. If our house ever catches fire, these books will be the first to be rescued (after the humans and the dog).

After this child came three more girls. I have their "firsts", too. Every scribbled scrawled piece of paper, every precious drawing that the children and Grandchildren have given me goes into the album for that year. I saved my children's school work in boxes stored safely away.

I kept a diary for many years. It isn't the kind of diary that if I should die, my family could publish it and make a fortune. There isn't even a mention of a torrid love affair (I never had one) or even the disclosure of a friend's husband trying to win my love. It is just recordings of events that made up a day in our lives. These are precious memories.

I have a separate album for all the love letters my husband wrote to me. To know him, you would never think this macho man could compose such beautiful writings, but he did. Before we married, he travelled as a salesman four days a week. Each night that he was on the road and staying in a motel, he would take the time to write me a letter.

I am sentimental about cars, rose bushes I have planted and nurtured to grow, about houses I have loved and had to leave, baby cribs and highchairs, first birthday dresses, little black patent leather shoes, seashells we have collected, and flower vases made by little hands from paper cups. I've discovered that their works of art made with macaroni or rice don't hold up over the years.

I saved my first baby's crib, and used it for three of my other babies. I intended to hand it down to my Grandchildren until I began to read how dangerous these old cribs were. A baby's head can be wedged between the wide slats.

I cried when I destroyed my old crib.

My four girls took ballet classes when they were quite young. I saved their ballet slippers and their tiny costumes used in their recitals.

I am sentimental about everything and anything that has to do with my family and each person in my family's lives. I can't bear to part with anything that has given me joy and happiness. My house was like a museum. Some people would call it junk, but I would look around at my wall to wall family photos and all the other "junk". I'm so glad I have saved them all, because they gave me joy just to look at them.

I downsized about a year ago. I left my house of 35 years and moved into a small two bedroom apartment. I couldn’t take all my sentimental things with me. I kept a small sampling from each of my four daughters and seven grandchildren.

One of my granddaughters gave me a little Easter cookie several years ago. It is in the shape of a little baby chick. I still have that! It is now as hard as a rock. I could never bring myself to eat that little cookie.

Before I moved out of my old house, I had my family take many the pieces they had given me over the years. I enjoy going to their houses and look at all my treasures!

I'm sort of like Emma Bombeck who was one of my favorite writers. She had four kids, and I could identify with her writings. She said she never liked to wash her glass sliding doors, because she never wanted to wash away her children's precious hand prints.

I intended to keep my small apartment walls completely clear, but that didn't work out too well. I now have wall to wall family photos.

I have many of my children's gifts on the walls (including the bathroom). I love looking at them and remembering all the good times we have together.

I will always be a sentimental person, I suppose, but now I tell my family: just remember, I have no space to keep treasures. When I die, you will get my treasures. You just may not have the space for them, either!

Just give me a nice box of chocolates for my birthday and for all the holidays.

I am expecting two new Great Grandchildren. The first little piece of paper I receive with the childish scrawl that says, "I love you, Great Grandma" will be kept for the rest of my life!

It will be too valuable to throw away.