Trash or Treasure…The Things We Keep

By Mike Haskins

My wife, daughter and I moved this summer. In fact, we are still in the process. It's all but done, yet somehow it's not quite.

This has prompted exclamations like, "Where did this come from?" "Why do we have this?" "Oh man, I haven't seen this in forever!"

The object itself may not be worth much.

The story can be priceless.

I've been thinking about that for six weeks now, ever since we started packing.

Some moves are monumental in distance. Six and a half years ago, I moved from California to Colorado, and it wasn't just the distance. I moved away from my two oldest kids and a family of lifelong friends.

This time, the move was literally one block.

That small distance would make it seem like the move was easier. And in some ways, it was. But it was still moving.

And one of the biggest challenges you face, no matter how far you move, is this:

How did we get this much stuff?

And, perhaps more importantly, how much of it do we really want or need?

I know people who have lived in their houses for 25, 30, even 40 years. What in the world will they do? Or, perhaps more poignantly, what will their kids face when the time comes when they're the ones deciding what happens to it all, and we're no longer here to decide for them?

In our case, we actually moved into a bigger home. But so many of us, as we get older, are doing the opposite. We are downsizing. And downsizing can be a real challenge when you have accumulated a lifetime of things.

How do we decide what stays and what goes?

Things can have a real impact on us. A dining room table that has hosted countless holidays. A bookshelf that mom and dad had for 45 years. Endless knickknacks and baubetter chance at another lifetime.

And that brings me to a little wooden box.

Soon after we moved into our new place, my mother-in-law came for a visit. One evening, she was going through the items in a small wooden, but lovely, box.

It had  den in the family for decades, and is at least 70 years old. Now my wife has it.

Inside were small treasures. Four silver napkin rings from generations past. Two pocket watches and a watch chain. A penknife and a pair of opera glasses.

As girls, my wife and her sister would open this box of treasures at least once a month. Their mother told them which relative each item had come from, and each had some history and, therefore, some magic in it.

This small box had been part of my wife's entire life. It came to her after her dad passed away 25 years ago.

That night in the new house, I sat near my mother-in-law as she inspected the treasures.

"I really like the box," I commented.

She looked up at me and told me very casually that my wife's dad had purchased the box as a gift for his mother in North Africa when he was in the service.

In my peripheral vision, I saw my wife quickly moving into the front room from the kitchen.

"What, Mom! Are you kidding me?"

She had no idea where the box had come from.

These lifelong treasures had all been from her mom's side of the family. Now she found out they resided in a box that came from the other side of the world, and that box connected her to her father and his mother.

My wife immediately found a piece of paper and asked her mom a few questions. She wrote down the story of the box.

And now that's the newest treasure inside it.

I think that's the thing we sometimes forget about our stuff. The lives we lead. The families we raise. The places we've been. The friends we make along the way. Those are what define us far more than the things we accumulate.

But sometimes those things carry a little piece of all of that with them.

A table can hold the memory of Thanksgiving dinners.

A pocketknife can carry the memory of a father.

A little wooden box can carry a story across an ocean and through generations.

And sometimes the best thing we can do with those possessions is not simply decide whether they are trash or treasure. We can give them a chance at another life.

There is something wonderful about giving something away while you're still here to see the person receiving it appreciate it. And if there is a story attached to it, tell them. Write it down. Because someday, when somebody is standing in front of a closet, a garage or a basement full of things and wondering what to do with all of it, that story might be the difference between throwing something away and keeping it.

So I suppose the gleaning goes on for all of us. The things on our walls. The things we can hold in our hands. The belongings that have become part of our routines. They bring us comfort. They bring us happiness. The trick is not to have those things obscured by all the fluff we seem to accumulate, which can feel unending.

I wish I could tell you I've got it all figured out. That I've sorted my treasure from my trash and made peace with the rest.

As for me…

Why do we have all these small trash cans? I haven't ever seen you wear that dress. Why do I have a box of my daughter's fourth-grade schoolwork?

Sorry, I have to go.

I'm still unpacking.