Lasting Legacies Articles

Fire! Part 3: Other Mementos

If you are like me, you have saved more than just photographs over the years. There are wedding announcements, award certificates, trinkets from your travels, baby clothing, neckties, and locks of hair. They’re taking up space in your closet just like those photographs. Do you really need them? Probably not.

You may hold the illusion that after you die your loved ones will want all of your cherished mementos. That may be true for some things, but not all of them. Take stock of what you have. Which items have monetary value? Which have sentimental value? Items of pure sentiment are only worth the memories they represent. After you’re gone, those items will have no value at all unless you have preserved the story that goes with it. In fact, it is generally the story that has value, not the trinket.

Take time now to use your mementos for the purpose they were intended—to bring back memories. Small items can be mounted in a shadowbox, available at your local craft store. Sentimental clothing can be made into a memory quilt. If an item is worth keeping, it is worth putting on display.

Rather than just basking in nostalgia, take a photograph of each item and record it, along with the story of its significance, as part of your memoir book, CD, or DVD. Your record can double as proof of your possessions for insurance purposes in case of theft or disaster.

One woman I know decided that once she had recorded the stories, she no longer needed the items themselves, so she gave them to her loved ones while she was still in good health, thereby preventing potential disputes among her heirs about her will. She even gave away most of her beautiful antique furniture. Then, freed from the responsibility of caring for all that stuff, she sold her house and moved into a smaller residence, where she began the next rich phase of her life. She described the experience of clearing out her old things as one of release and renewal. Now she has less dusting to do, and more time for fun!

Author: Linda A. Smith

02-16-2008

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