Just thinking about downsizing (and we are—big time) makes me look with jaded eyes at every knickknack, every trinket, every little dust collector on every tabletop and shelf throughout the house. I can be heartless and toss out books I’ve never read (unless they’ve been inscribed by an ancestor), Sunday school lesson-plans (unless I wrote accompanying parent notes with anecdotes from my own children’s lives), treasured letters and cards (unless written by my parents or children), old spiral-bound journals (unless there’s something worth revising for a memoir)—well, you get the point. I’m not getting very far reducing my "stuff."
In the trinket department alone, I am thoroughly attached to any of them that conjure up the giver or the occasion. Take, for instance, this sweet bobble-head Madonna and child, given to me by Karen Gorini in 1962, the spring I was taking Catholic instruction—having fallen in love with a “nice catholic boy,” the man who became my husband. Karen said something like this when she gave it to me: “I saw this and thought of you. The devotion to Mary by Catholics has always been kind of intriguing. I hope you like it—kind of silly, but maybe useful.”
Our Lady, the bobble-head doll, is soiled and faded after 48 years of always being visible in my home. She’s never been out of my sight, never packed away in an old box or shoved into the back of a cupboard. Her sweet image delights me and always reminds me of Karen’s friendship and her acceptance of her Protestant friend’s intrigue and eventual passtionate love affair with Roman Catholicism. I will never get rid of this trinket, ever! It is far too precious.
In the trinket department alone, I am thoroughly attached to any of them that conjure up the giver or the occasion. Take, for instance, this sweet bobble-head Madonna and child, given to me by Karen Gorini in 1962, the spring I was taking Catholic instruction—having fallen in love with a “nice catholic boy,” the man who became my husband. Karen said something like this when she gave it to me: “I saw this and thought of you. The devotion to Mary by Catholics has always been kind of intriguing. I hope you like it—kind of silly, but maybe useful.”
Our Lady, the bobble-head doll, is soiled and faded after 48 years of always being visible in my home. She’s never been out of my sight, never packed away in an old box or shoved into the back of a cupboard. Her sweet image delights me and always reminds me of Karen’s friendship and her acceptance of her Protestant friend’s intrigue and eventual passtionate love affair with Roman Catholicism. I will never get rid of this trinket, ever! It is far too precious.
2 comments:
I think she is beautiful - and am glad she has stayed with you.
When you have mastered the process, I'd like to have you talk about it with a woman I know.
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