Heirlooms

Putting silverware in the drawer this morning at my daughter's house, my eyes fell on a table knife that brought back memories.  It was a pistol-handled knife that was part of a set I had ordered in the mail many years ago. For some reason, the primitive-looking set appealed to me, maybe reminding me of pilgrims or something.  The forks were three-pronged, prompting a visiting child to say one day, "Why are we eating with meat forks?" I don't remember what happened to the rest of the hardy stainless flatware, but at least Amy has a souvenir of her childhood.

I see other objects around her house that used to be mine, but since my house is largely running over with "stuff," I occasionally pass things on to my daughters.  An attractive pair of plaster (or chalk) busts of a young girl and boy sit atop a display case in her living room.  On seeing them when we come here, a wave of nostalgia washes over me. I remember when they presided from the top shelf of our bookcase wall in Mississippi.  They are even in the background of a family portrait.

Wall art of graceful southern belles at the piano and playing the violin in an antebellum setting hangs in our bedroom here. I bought it a neighbor's garage sale some forty years ago and gave it to Amy when we moved to Wichita in 1995.  Once a friend saw it in her house and convinced Amy it was valuable. She said it was a print of a famous painting and worth a lot of money. "Look, it even has the print number, 24-30 on the back!" she exclaimed, "It means number 24 in a printing of 30."  Turned out it was the dimensions of the picture, 24"x 30".  The appraiser admired the pretty frame, though.

None of these items are valuable, except for the memories they evoke of a time when I was a busy housewife and mother to our brood of six. We are widely scattered now, thanks to almost everyone relocating after hurricane Katrina. Families were God's idea.  "He puts the solitary in families..." Psalm 68:6.  Paul says in Ephesians 3:14-15, "For this cause I bow my knees unto the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, Of whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named."

We have family in heaven that we will see again someday. I'm so thankful that all our family members on earth, as Christians, are named by His Name.  I love to be with my family and reminisce over old possessions, and after I'm gone, they can have all the keepsakes they want!