The meaning of keeping things from the past
Whenever you think of your grandparents, you think of the things they had but are now long gone. Things that you wish you still had but for some reason don’t. Only grandparents have those kinds of things. We’ll all be grandparents soon enough.
Like those treasure chests at the end of beds or in closets. They looked like something too fancy for your household, and you wondered how they were passed down through the ages. They surely must have been handed down from aristocrats or royal families. The people you wish to claim as far away ancestors.
My grandparents liked to keep things, just to keep them. That’s what you do when you grew up in the great depression. The old jacket from high school. The wedding dress you can’t fit into anymore. The lucky hat, the noisy washing machine, the big box TV. The kinds of things that we switch out regularly because we can. Those things they kept.
Not only did they keep them, they worked, and they looked new despite their age. We don’t keep things anymore. We throw things away. “It’s time for a new one,” we tell ourselves. “Let’s get rid of that old thing.”
