Every year around Christmastime, members of my family each go to their little plastic boxes and pull out a card with a recipe that has been passed down for over 100 years. On each card are the precisely measured ingredients to make my Great-Grandmother Bess’ butter current tarts. 

One very special card has the stains of age and the fingerprints of generations of sons, daughters, grandmothers, grandchildren, nieces and nephews, all trying to make the perfect tart. 

From that single card, scores of others have been copied and shared in my family, most of which are in my mother’s elegant penmanship. They get old, torn, tattered, but they are never thrown away.  

I look around my house, and I see many other things that are old, tattered, or seemingly out of place, but I would never throw them away. Why? They are my history.

That sparkly gold colored rock over there on the bookshelf clashes with everything else, but it will always remain there. The grandfather I never met pulled it from a mine in Alaska. His plane went down on a flight from Anchorage to meet me before my third birthday.

I don’t smoke, but the Brigham pipe that sits on my desk was from my Great-Grandfather Jones. It’s always been near me.

A handwritten note from my mother saying, “I’m so proud of you,” a picture of my Grandmother Millie helping me learn to walk, a Raggedy Andy baby bowl, all surround me every day. They are my treasures. This is my history.  

I exist because of them. How about you?

When you look around your world, what—or who do you see? What do you keep? Some people are not the sentimental type, and I get it.  

My father is one of those people. Me? 

These objects represent the people that have touched them, and I just can’t let go. Do you do the same with heirlooms from parents, grandparents, or maybe grandchildren?  

Crayon drawings on the fridge? A treasure box on the dresser? Wanna know a secret? That card is mine now.