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March 10, 2026 · 4:13 pm

Still Here in Spirit

I’m sure a lot of people do it—hold on to things that their loved ones used and perhaps cherished during their lifetimes. That’s why they call them keepsakes—something tangible that helps us keep our loved ones close to our hearts even if they’re gone from this earth. In theory, they’re items that hold special significance or meaning because they were once important to the deceased or to the person who ultimately winds up with them. Sad to say, I’ve collected a fair number of mementos over the years. And they all serve the same purpose—connection. Furniture, china, artwork, clothing, jewelry, knickknacks and boxes upon boxes of snapshots that flood our minds with memories the instant we open them. Some of it’s useful, some of it’s not especially.

I realize it makes no sense to hang on to my dad’s wedding band. It’s currently stuffed in a tiny box in a dresser drawer. I sometimes get it out and slide it on my thumb, trying to remember how it looked on his hand. I suppose I could have it made into another piece of jewelry, but I don’t want to change its integrity. It just doesn’t feel right.

My mom’s and my grandmothers’ rings, by contrast, I decided to resize so I could wear them. Not every day, but more often than I thought I would. It sounds weird but I’d like to think that when I put them on, they’re still with me, at least in spirit. They’ve come along to our granddaughter’s birthday parties, to special dinners, to holiday celebrations, to my aunt’s and uncle’s funerals, to our oldest daughter’s wedding, to one of our twin’s musicals as a choral director, to our other twin’s engagement and to their college graduations and recitals (they were both music majors). Again and again, as I glanced down at my mom’s diamond ring, it’s as if she were sitting right there in the seat next to me, experiencing the music, the performance, the ceremony or whatever was happening at the time.

By the same token, my brother, who I lost to suicide 20 years ago, has been “attending” numerous events that I thought he might appreciate. I wear some of his shirts like a warm hug and if the occasion presents itself, I tell people that I do it because I’m proud of the man he was and that he needs to “get out and about with me.” Occasionally, I’ll open the bottle of cologne I saved just to remember, and it’s as if he’s right there. Likewise, my husband occasionally visits some of his mother’s clothing we’ve stored in the attic and swears he can still smell her perfume even though it’s been almost two decades since we lost her. It’s a way of connecting to his past and I surely understand.

I suppose the weirdest keepsake to date is a plant that my mother-in-law loved and cared for as it sat on a windowsill over her kitchen sink for the longest time. It was an African violet and we kept it alive close to 15 years—no small feat given our less than impressive track record of houseplant survival.

My dear friend, Pam, makes it a habit to say “Good morning” and “Goodnight” to her husband’s urn so that she might better function throughout each day. She also sleeps in Bill’s favorite T-shirts as a rule, helping her to remember him and the occasions when they were purchased. She kept his wedding band and has a gold heart imprinted with his unique thumbprint. Not surprisingly, she has a wealth of pictures and mementos of their times together and she still has a few of his voicemails, so that she won’t ever forget his voice.

Another dear friend, Ann, shared with me that she still has the duty assignment cards that were her aunt’s, who was a volunteer Red Cross Driver during WWI and WWII. That same aunt personally witnessed the Hindenburg explosion in 1937 in New Jersey and Ann wound up with the newspaper clipping from that day. She also kept some dishes and handmade furniture from her great grandparents and poems written by her uncle. Generations of family history were also preserved and passed down to her—something she values beyond measure. Ann also suffered a heartbreaking loss of her teenage son and has kept the model ship he built among a host of special mementos.

I truly understand why people like me keep the keepsakes. It’s so the connection remains and the grief is temporarily replaced by feelings of comfort and remembrance.

Welcome to my world. It’s where I live (probably wearing one of my brother’s shirts). Visit me there at www.facebook.com/NotesFromPlanetMom. Signed books are available on Etsy at PlanetMomMarket.

The Value of Permanence

Lots of things in this world are disturbing to me. Greed, poverty and heinous crime. The demise of the planet and the pervasiveness of mediocrity. Mismatched socks and the death of Gilligan’s Island. Oddly enough, I include technology on that list, too—or more correctly, the alarming pace at which technological devices are mass produced, marketed to the public and propelled into the great abyss of planned obsolescence. It’s as if we’re cultivating a generation of people who care less and less about the enduring nature of things and more about the latest nugget of innovation that promises to improve society in some novel way. That said, I fear that my kids will grow to devalue the permanence of things—despite the fact that on this particular day the notion seems wholly inconceivable.

As I’ve described so many times before (occasionally in horrific detail) the hoarding tendencies of Thing One and Thing Two are beyond all comprehension—as is their love of sameness. Ostensibly, their mission in life is to avoid change at all possible costs and to amass virtually every molecule of that which is deemed worthy of collecting—heaping it upon dressers, shoving it beneath beds and stowing it into forgotten corners of our pitifully disordered garage. Of course, they’ve come by this trait honestly. Captain Clutter could, at any given time, produce the following: a receipt for a television we no longer own, a tool I have never once seen in my life, an impressive array of his artwork from the fifth grade, a prized stash of his baby teeth. Yes, baby teeth. I wish I were joking.

At any rate, the hoarding gene seems inextricably present within my brood, although to some extent this gives me comfort because it implies there is hope that my daughters will feel compelled to hold on to the remnants of life that truly matter—the tangible stuff that will trigger memories long after I’m gone, serving to moor them to their childhood.

Like any good cynic, I’m skeptical that an electronic record could preserve the past on par with that which I can hold in my hands. Further, bits and bytes seem inordinately complex and elusive to me. Ethereal almost. Not to mention, data stored in this fashion is far from safe in my charge, having managed to delete countless items to my utter dismay. My husband, too, has mourned the loss of infinitely dear morsels of remembrances, having inadvertently erased a snippet of speech from his cell phone not long ago—one that was placed there by a certain six-year-old who breathlessly told of some robins who had apparently “…lost their way, Daddy!” Her voice, filled impossibly with the exuberance of youth on that memorable January day, cannot be replicated.

Indeed, lapses in judgment happen. Computers crash. Files become corrupt or irretrievable. That which is irreplaceable can be woefully distorted or lost entirely. What’s more, the digital wonders of the 21^st century, although truly wonderful, somehow lack the essential element of palpability in my mind—especially as keepsakes go. Pictures and even video clips of my family at the shore simply cannot compare with the sack full of shells we gathered together and hauled back to Pennsylvania because someone insisted that we “…take the beach home, Mom. It’ll help us remember.” Even still, the briny scent of the sea hits me squarely when I open the bag to finger our bounty once more and to poke at the grains of sand that have settled to the bottom. In an instant I am back at the beach, feeling the warmth beneath my feet and hearing the gulls shriek over the waves that pound without end.

Likewise, an email doesn’t possess near the charm that a handwritten letter does—especially if doodles have been scrawled in the margins or a violet has been carefully tucked within the folds of the paper. Nor can a digital photograph compete with the inherent brilliance of a grainy, black and white 35 mm print. Moreover, a text message is not remotely related to a lunchbox note, or one that awaits beneath a bed pillow at day’s end.

Color me old-fashioned, resistant-to-change—a dinosaur even. That aside, I feel connected to what’s real and right for me.

Planet Mom: It’s where I live (tethered forever to that which is tangible). Visit me there at www.facebook.com/NotesfromPlanetMom.