The value of heirlooms.

Back to Saint Angela, my grandmother. When she passed away, I knew ahead of time that there was exactly one item of hers that I wanted after she was gone. While other family members were staking claim on jewelry, furniture, you know, the high dollar items, I wanted something worth probably a buck at the time, but you couldn't give me millions for it now.

Her apron.

Trust me. Nobody fought me on it.

When your loved ones leave you, there is usually a lot to be done; cleaning out the house, donating items that don't make sense to be divvied up, closing accounts, etc. Arguably the most daunting job (and the one that causes the most rifts) is deciding who gets what. Does the oldest child get the wedding ring, do the kitchen items go to the newlyweds, will the antique armoire go to the person who spoke for it, oh, and WHO spoke for it first? Death is hard enough without adding the burden of arguments over "things". And I was not about to fight with anyone over anything, except that apron.

We essentially grew up in my grandparents' kitchen. Thousands of conversations were held at the table, hundreds of meals were eaten, all of us were kicked out of the pantry at one time or another. Secrets were shared over stolen tastes of spaghetti sauce. Sticky hands were slapped away from the stash of orange slices (the gummy Brach's kind. IYKYK). The wallpaper pattern was traced with generations of little fingers. They say life happens in the kitchen, and it really did.

I won't call out names here but there definitely were disagreements over who got what. Many of the items in the house were already delegated and tagged but there was still the occasional "misunderstanding" of new ownership, to put it lightly. But while others were putting high dollar values on jewelry and furniture, I tried (unsuccessfully and eventually gladly) to put a dollar amount on her apron and it just couldn't happen. How do you monetize a scrap of cloth that, while faded and ragged, was a piece of cloth cut from the life of decades of love and sadness and food and rites of passage? You just don't.

Dear readers, this threadbare apron of mine (now) is not cute, as aprons go. It provides no coverage, no protection from spills and splashes (and if you know me, you know I didn't earn the nickname of "Messy Jessie" for nothing). It no longer gives off a scent remniscient of an Italian kitchen. It sits folded in a Ziploc baggie in a box of treasures. I'm sure Gram would be horrified that I haven't yet used it but I just can't bring myself to, not even after 16 years.

An heirloom, in part defined by Webster, is something of special value handed down from one generation to another. And as I've already mentioned, value means something different to each person. Part of what we can and should do together is take inventory way before the appropriate time dictates, in order to avoid such disagreements and give focus to holding a sacred and calm space at the time of death. We can do this while keeping in mind and at heart than an heirloom doesn't always have to be something tangible. It can be a recipe recited from memory, a story passed down through the generations (details changed, of course, like they are in my family - looking at you, Mom and Dad), or a funny joke told over one too many glasses of Lambrusco.

Full disclaimer: the current owners of the house still have Gram's garden planter in the shape of a girl pushing a wheelbarrow, and every time I go see my folks, who happen to live in the same neighborhood, I hatch the next step of my plan to steal... I mean, return it to its rightful family.

Keep the value, and pass it down.

Originally written and published 10/18/21 by Jessica Viscariello.