An “heirloom” is an object steeped in family history, handed down from generation to generation: your mother’s wedding dress, your grandma’s espresso cups, your great uncle’s underwear. You can’t buy an heirloom at Pottery Barn or Ikea. It comes via gift, bequest or a heated sibling brawl. But who’s to say you actually want this stale old stuff?
- from here.
My mother’s step-father, a man who ultimately functioned as her father after her biological one died young, was a woodworker.
His name was Charles, known to most as Charlie, and among the things he crafted were a cedar toychest for me (it currently functions as our coffee table – a big, brown box in the living room) and grandfather clocks for my mother and her two sisters.
After my mother died, my father held onto the grandfather clock. After my father died, it became mine.
And I do not want it.
There is no space in our little house for this clock, so it sits awkwardly in our dining room, blocking the window. It doesn’t keep time at the moment, though that may be an easy fix. The only resident of our home who cares about it is the cat – she uses it as a perch to look out the very top of our window.
I tried to give it to my cousin who had indicated her interest in having it; it’s still here.
I tried to entice my aunts to take it; they have their own.
I feel no emotional tie to this clock, though I loved the sound of it as a child, and I want it out of my house. I fear that if I put it out at the sidewalk for someone to pick up, my extended family will somehow discover this transgression and kill me for it.
(I know, though, that if I put it out at the curb on Thursday it’ll likely be gone before the garbage trucks come on Friday morning.)
The kids won’t want it, ever, since it has no emotional tie to me.. and the kids have no emotional tie to my relatives.
What to do?
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