Hideous heirlooms?
Antique salt shaker with salt still in it
By Maralyn Lois Polak
I want to sell my house, so I’m downsizing.
I pay a guy a few bucks to carry heavy boxes from the basement. I am not even sure what these boxes contain. They have never been opened or unpacked. All I remember is they contain my mother’s most cherished possessions. I have been carting them from place to place ever since she died in 1989.
My mother’s treasures are those almost ordinary necessities an ambitious housewife, first-generation immigrant stock, would prize and aspire to pass on to her daughter in Philadelphia — crystal, silver, porcelain, lace, linen, cut glass — symbols of what she envisioned as the finer life from her small corner of the 20th century.
I’m sure she endlessly “scrimped and saved” for them out of my government-worker father’s modest salary.
While polishing some of my mother’s silver, I notice a sterling salt-shaker still filled with salt… her salt. In there all this time.
By now, it could be a collectible. Nevertheless, I pour it down the kitchen sink. And it actually pours. Must be iodized.
Surreal.
An uneasy legacy
I am my family’s museum — repository of all their lost dreams and desires. It’s an uneasy legacy. Yes, I am uncomfortable in this role, but here I am. They are all gone — my mother, my father, my brother. Their possessions have outlived them. Obtrusive. Redundant. Annoying. Except for my mom’s wristwatch, which I wear each day to keep her near me, second after second.
Sometimes, I feel possessed by my possessions. I yearn to start anew, free from my relentless collections of things.
Not surprisingly, no one else really seems to want these things, either. Not friends. Not the snooty Main Line consignment shop with more rules for doing business than Homeland Security’s airport travel regulations. Not even the fancy silver resale boutique downtown.
Heirloom or ‘hideosity?’
How, I wonder, could I possibly squeeze all my possessions into the equivalent of just one room?
What would become of my brother’s ceramic Wizard of Oz lamp, a replica of the Emerald City?
What about my father’s slingshot?
My mother’s lace party-dresses?
Too often, one person’s heirloom is definitely another’s hideosity — perhaps propelling an ultimately inevitable trip to the thrift-shop. I can see myself finally deciding in exasperation, Oh, just dump everything and get on with your life!
Suddenly I understand why, unlike me, people have children: You can leave them all your crap.
Except even that’s no assurance your treasures will live on through family or friends. “I’m sure my kids will throw away my stuff they’ll inherit,” says my friend. “Which is why I’m asking people, in advance, what they want of mine. Say, would you like my airline miles?”
Absolutely.
