What memorabilia did you keep?

[pinkytoe]

I have a shoe box size container for each parent and both are inside a wooden chest. They mostly contain physical things like diaries from their adolescent and college days (1930s). I figure that is a reasonable amount for anyone to go through some day when I am gone. One huge box of photos went to my brother, the family historian (after we scanned them). It is interesting but when you let go of these memory-filled things from your life, a weight is lifted. The passage of time helps a lot too as their is often some guilt about other's lives lived and how to honor that.

[Teacher Terry]

The stuff I kept from my parents would fill a shoebox. I have given it to 2 of my sons that wanted it. I tend to live in the present. I really don’t need physical items as I have all my great memories of my parents and grandparents.

[herbgeek]

Do you make sure your children see this side of them, for example? Does it die with you?

I don't have kids. The culture has changed since the 60s- getting drunk the way they did is really frowned upon now, and a number of these pictures raised my eyebrows. These somewhat unflattering/questionable situation pictures were tossed. The grandkids don't know any of the people in the pictures other than my parents.

[happystuff]

I still have two sort of big file boxes/crates of my son's stuff. I go through it every couple of years - that's about all I can handle. I do manage to reduce each time, though. As others have said, there is a sense of "freeing".

[iris lilies]

The stuff I kept from my parents would fill a shoebox.

…..

Is that all? The bad stuff I kept from my parents, i.e. didnt tell them of my shenanigans, would fill my dining room from floor to ceiling, if actions were assigned physical mass. Hahahah.

This is how I first read your post, skim reading as I do. Doh. I guess THAT would be a whole other thread.

[Teacher Terry]

That’s funny IL! Actually I was very good and rarely did anything I wasn’t supposed to. My sister on the other hand).

[Tybee]

I still have two sort of big file boxes/crates of my son's stuff. I go through it every couple of years - that's about all I can handle. I do manage to reduce each time, though. As others have said, there is a sense of "freeing".

I'm real sorry you have to go through that and it sounds like it is a process.

[happystuff]

Thanks, Tybee. Definitely a process.

[Tybee]

Two weeks ago I sent my second cousin photographs of her mother, her uncle, and her grandparents that had been in my grandmother's photo albums, going back to 1921. He mom passed in 2017. She wrote yesterday and said they were so happy to get them, that they had had no pictures of their mom from when she was growing up, and that is what I found and sent to her. I have never met this cousin, but I located her by going on Etsy and looking for her art studio, which is in Massachusetts.

She was so happy and excited to get them! I have the eerie feeling our grandmothers arranged this from beyond. I am so honored to have conveyed them to her, after they spent the last 40 years in my dad's steamer trunk. The pictures I sent her of her grandparents wedding were from 1921, exactly a hundred years ago. There were several, including the whole family, with my great-grandparents, who would die by around 1945, looking so happy and proud.

I am SO glad my brother did not succeed in giving it all to the junker to haul away, which was his plan.

[happystuff]

Nice, Tybee! Good job on your part!!