I Guess I See Things Differently.
For Dylan’s first speech at college, he created a presentation about a cultural artifact with significant meaning to him.
Dylan said, “I couldn’t think of anything except Mimi’s Oreo dessert.”
My mother makes a fantastic chocolate pudding-based delight that wows the grandkids for every special occasion. So Dylan wrote a five-minute speech about the special meaning of Mimi’s Oreo dessert in his life.
At virtually the same time, Shane had an assignment for his creative writing class.
“We had to write about an object that meant a lot to us,” he said. “But I just looked in my backpack and saw a Ben & Jerry’s gift card. So I decided to write my paper on how we eat Ben & Jerry’s at Mimi’s house on Christmas.”
And that’s when I started to feel … hurt. Mimi’s Oreo dessert, and now ice cream at Mimi’s house. We have ice cream at our house!
After 19 years of desperately trying to provide everything my children could ever want or need – not one single thing matters to either of them from inside our own home.
To be fair, I loved my grandmother’s M-n-M cookies and Lemon Blennd, so I should have been more understanding.
Instead, I laid into Shane.
“It’s not really about ice cream,” Shane said in his own defense. “It’s about spending that wonderful holiday with all the people I love.”
“But you’re telling me that there is absolutely nothing in your own home that means more to you than a pint of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream!”
“What would you have said?” Shane countered.
I looked around. There was the orchid that Bill got when we were first dating – a once single-stalked plant that grew into a monster over 25 years. Nearby is a photo of my children watching fireworks at Disney World; that photo’s story is a full book waiting to happen. On my desk sits a stone rabbit that is profoundly meaningful to me.
“The orchid,” I said, and told Shane the story.
“But what about when you were a kid?” he countered.
I thought back to my childhood: the myriad of stuffed animals, some of which were made by my own grandmother; the baseball cap I got during my first season of softball; those black, leopard-print pillows on our couch; my first camera; the picnic table in our breakfast nook; my butterfly collection; my rock collection; my banana-seated bicycle; my purple velour jacket; our giant spool-style tables; even the green plastic cup from when my parents worked at a plastics factory. I could have written essays on all of those, and then written a hundred more.
Shane pointed out that it was his family that mattered, not the material possession he chose. But I guess I see things differently.
To me, everything I keep, even only in my memories, represent more than just “stuff.” They represent my family – who we are, who we were, who we want to be. Through them, I can tell the stories of how we lived, who we were, what I love most about my life. It’s not about the objects, but I find value in what so very many objects represent.
It’s all tied together – for me, at least.
For my kids, apparently, there’s no value in the things around them. And probably, that’s my fault. Maybe I never showed them how much they can appreciate things for what they say about us as a family.
Or maybe they just never learned to connect emotionally with stuff because they were too busy connecting emotionally with people, especially their beloved grandparents.
Which means, really: it’s not a problem at all.