The window over the sink was still open from last night. I could smell the spring air as I made my way through the kitchen in the dark, heading for the light switch and coffee pot. The air felt warm, a good sign for my tomato starts and young pole bean plants. Spring has been slow in coming this year; the nights have been close to freezing. I am on my second set of “starts,” the first set having succumbed to the cold nights. I was eager and set them out too early. Even at 70, I am often impulsive. Old age is no barrier to being human.

For some time now, Lydia has been “getting rid of junk,” room by room she has winnowed our belongings. Old college texts, t-shirts too small, bits of ribbon, rock, and shell have all gone. I have ambivalent feelings about it all. There is a sense in which an old college text on a shelf is a comforting reminder of having been to college, having read that book, having responded to the thoughts it contains in discussion and on paper. On the other hand, I will never read that book again. What I needed from it is now a part of me somehow. Bits of rock and shell bring to mind walks on the beach, but I never look at their jar on the shelf. I have the memory. Why keep them? But then, why not?

The stuff gets sorted into piles: keep, toss out, send to St. Vinnies, decide later if the kids (and/or grandkids) might want them. It’s a process I avoid. I am just as happy with stuff piled on shelves.

A side effect of this process is the conversations we have with our children about the “things the kids might want” pile. Some objects obviously belonged to a specific child. Those are easy. The more difficult items are those that belong to the family. We try to give both kids a chance to lay claim to them. We let them decide how much stake they have in them. Little by little, the piles get smaller as the kids take what has some meaning, some element of emotion and memory for them. It’s not big stuff, not expensive, but somehow significant.

Tangentially, today is the 50^th anniversary of the killing of students at Kent State University, an event that sparked student protest on every campus in America. For those of us who participated, it became known as the May action. I bring this to mind because all our protests had a purpose. We wanted justice, humanity, and an end to violence… we had a vision of a better world, something of value to hand to our children.

50 years on, not much has changed. Students still protest, both peacefully and violently. Police still respond, both peacefully and violently.  There is not much in the wide scope of things to hand on with pride.

I have not given up hope. The world is what it is, but we still hand on to our children the little things with meaning: teacups from their great-grandmothers, a great-grandfather’s hammer and a butcher knife he made by hand during the depression. Recipes and Christmas ornaments, bits of shell and old marbles. We write the names and dates that we remember on the backs of pictures before we pass them on. We sit and sort through the things, sharing the remembrances, before they get put in little boxes to be hauled away to a new home.

Gradually we hand on the symbols of what we value to those we cherish –little bits that they can share and say to their kids “this was my mom’s” or “this is what we always had for Christmas Eve”. It isn’t much, but it has continuity. It’s what we hand on down the line.

Blessings.

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