Something Old

As everyone knows by now, my grandfather passed away earlier this week. He was really the only grandparent I ever had since my grandma and the other older relatives passed-on before I was born; this will also be the first funeral I will attend for one of my own family members. Most of my memories of him are of the couple of years when he picked me up from school everyday. Every single day he pulled up to my elementary school with a double cheeseburger, fries, and a rootbeer or a shake from Carl's Jr. It's a mystery how I wasn't obese. Then we would drive to my brother's high school and talk about my day until my brother made his way out to the car. I also remember when he speant a very long time in Toys 'R Us trying to pick-out a Barbie wedding dress for my birthday present one year. So while I can't say we always had very much in common, I knew that he was always there for me no matter what, no questions asked.

To be completely honest, I was kind of surprised by how much his death has affected me since we had all been expecting it to happen for the past few months. After a lot of thinking and talking with Darryl, I think that it's because I now feel kind of disconnected from my past. While my family has always shared stories and old photographs of little bits of our family history, I don't think it ever mattered as much to me as it does now. It wasn't until now, in the midst of planning my wedding and beginning to form a new family with Darryl (and the cats), that I've become more curious about what happened way back when my grandparents, and great-grandparents, got married and made all kinds of decisions that sealed the fate of the family's future. All of the sudden it matters a lot more to me what happened to my grandmother's wedding dress and rings, or my great-grandmother's antique dishes. Sure, I have tons of stuff from my own mother, as well as little things from my childhood that I'm saving just in case we have a daughter someday, but it would be nice to find something from our earliest known history to feel a connection to.

So while I am going to try and hunt down some of those things, ultimately I can focus on the memories I alone have, and also on the fact that Darryl and I can create those kinds of heirlooms for our own kids and grandkids so that they can have "something old" for their wedding days.