Today we buried my grandmother's ashes under an orange tree in a park near where she grew up. Nenor died a year ago. I've been given all of the family history stuff - various birth, marriage and death certificates, personal letters, family bible, newspaper articles of birth and death notices, family member's achievements etc. I also have some poems that Nenor's father wrote for her after she was married. He was apparently a quiet man and seems to have been very fond his daughter. He died when my father was little.
I am wearing Nenor's pearl necklace, her pearl ring and her gold watch. I also have her wedding ring and various things given to my grandfather (who I never knew) - ambulance medals, scouting badges etc. These things are not really of any value to anyone, but they make my grandfather real to me.
Mum and Dad's house is over-full of crockery and crystal and other things from Nenor's place. Cleaning out someone's house after they've gone makes you realise how much stuff we accumulate. None of us need her stuff because we all have our own useless stuff that we've accumulated. I think there should be some system whereby we aren't allowed to buy new things before visiting an elderly relative and seeing if they have anything they'd like to give away.
Glad you could look through some of their letters and other personal things to learn about their lives. The park sounds like a lovely place for her ashes to be :)
ReplyDeleteI hear you on all the crockery and stuff. When my grandparents died a few years ago, they left a heap of those things as well (growing up in the Depression years made them big hoarders, apparently). My parents have a lot of it now, and heaps of their own stuff too. I'm trying to work out how to tactfully suggest that those kinds of things might be best donated to charity because I really don't want to end up with it later...you really only need one or two vases in your life if you don't grow your own flowers...