We've now put up pictures from my mum's flat on her bedroom wall here. Various others that there wasn't room for are stacked up in our hall awaiting further decisions. We can take one or two but the rest will have to go unless any of our or my brother's family want them. But there are lots of other things that also need decisions, such as the large plate above, which is always known as the Imari plate though I don't know whether it's actually Imari or not..
It belonged to my paternal grandmother and my parents took it when she went abroad. I wasn't particularly attached to this grandmother, simply because I didn't know her well. She moved down south with one of my aunts when I was 4 or 5 and though we saw her occasionally after that, she developed dementia when I was 11 or 12 and died, increasingly confused, when I was 18. By then, she'd lived for several years in Pakistan with my other, missionary doctor, aunt.
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So I have no real granny-attachment to this plate, but do associate it with my parents.
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I don't particularly like it because of the red in it, which is quite orangey. I'm not fond of orange. On the other hand, I don't dislike the plate.
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We can't keep everything. When considering whether to keep things, I ask myself if I would have bought them, and if the answer is no, then it seems sensible to get rid of them, especially if no one in the family likes them either and would just be burdened with them when we die. I wouldn't have bought this. And it is a big plate.
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But it's a family piece. Not valuable, alas, but it's been around in my life for a long time.
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There are lots more similar decisions to be made in the next few weeks.
Such difficult decisions. I attach my own things to special memories, and don't like to throw away special things, but I imagine it would be harder with things I didn't have an attachment to, but knew my family did. Good luck! I hope it gets easier for you.
ReplyDeleteHard to decide, but i do know that I regret that we didn't keep more of my Mother-in-laws things, so act slowly.
ReplyDeleteIt's difficult. I have lots of china which I would never have chosen, but as they are family pieces, I feel I cannot get rid of them. (I've kept them for nearly 40 years so far without making a decision!)
ReplyDeleteDifficult, difficult decisions. We have also been through this in the last year and still have boxes of "undecided things" Fortunately we have a very large garage!!
ReplyDeleteI think somebody needs to open an Etsy shop online! *wink*
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