Heirlooms...

My father's mother died when I was five years old. By all accounts, she was a great gal with a sharp wit, but I have absolutely no recollection of her. What I do remember are the many adult conversations around the kitchen table (ours, the cousins, various others) about her terrible death from lung cancer (after initially having a lung removed, a gruesome procedure in 1959) and how much they loved and missed her. It was decades into recovery before I connected the dots between my father's emotional absence and her death. I would think, "My father adored me when I was little, and then it felt like he went away." Ah, grief. Unresolved grief. Grief through the years. That is why my daddy went away, even though he was still sitting in his chair.

My grandmother had two sets of beautiful, Chinese figurines. The black & white set was willed to me - about twelve inches high, a man and a woman, each with a little curved hand to hold a separate bucket. These lovely figures have sat on bookshelves or cabinets wherever I've lived. I love them, and what they represent. And, I've just realized that it is time to pass them on to my cousin. My cousin who has children and grandchildren, and was intended to get them after I die, but why wait? It is a good decision.

It is a good decision, and once made and communicated, made me cry. For the figures? Not really, though they are lovely. I cried for the fact that I don't have a daughter to pass them on to like I'd imagined when I was a girl. I made the decision, after a decade of agonizing, not to have children, at least partly realizing that simply having someone to pass Grandma's figures on to was not reason enough to reproduce. I've not regretted that decision, much. I read a book during my uncertain years that suggested whichever decision I made, I would sometimes regret it. True, but oddly, the regret really didn't show up until I turned sixty, or more accurately, in the five years since my own dear mother died. Who will hold my hand as I pass to the next stage? Who will care about the tiny objects and mementos that I leave behind?

I was in a meeting once in Oxford, England. As we began, the chairperson asked if there were any announcements, or regrets. Regrets? This is an AA meeting, for God's sake - of course there are regrets. And then someone politely said, "Mary sends her best, but she won't be here this evening as she has a work engagement." I do love the British.

I sometimes joke about God's sense of humor. I ended up writing my Master's thesis on the validity of not having children. I never even dated anyone who was actively parenting. And then I met my husband - father to a then nine year old girl. Whoa, God. What's up? I can honestly say that being a part-time step-mom, however vaguely defined, has been a blessing I'd never have imagined. And, when I think of Grandma K's figurines, and Grandma H's sewing basket, it is my cousins and our history that I crave. It is those who've gone on that I miss. It is the realization of my own brief time here that I ponder.

And so, I will give the glass objects to my cousin. I will giggle with my now seventeen year old step-daughter about some silly thing on TV. I will look for opportunities to connect with family, near and far, as we all go about our busy lives. Regrets? Not many, actually.

What about you?