As the end of The Summer draws to a close, I ponder words to describe this summer. Summer of Hell? That Summer We Kept Moving And Pouring Money Into The House That Didn’t Sell? The Summer of Nearly No Cooling In Tucson?
Ah, words just can’t describe it.
How about the Summer of Bitchy? Because that would describe how I was this summer. All summer.
And there were many family issues, issues that I can’t talk about here for fear of death by muffin. Let’s just say that Missy, she went off her Zoloft, and proceeded to yell at anyone within e-mailing distance. And some of those thing involved small, nondescript items that used to belong to a family member who passed away last year.
So, in an effort to say “I’m not the only nutjob around here,” I present to you:
Who Get’s Grandma’s Yellow Pie Plate, a website that talks about what to do with your stuff when you die. Not the money — most people are smart enough to figure out they need a will for that — but for the little things. Like the yellow ceramic bowl my mom and I always made chocolate chip cookies with. Or the tin drinking glasses my grandmother had because they wouldn’t break, but that I always loved as a child because they were shiny.
Here’s a sample from the website:
Learn What Objects Have Meaning to You and to Others
“I was very surprised when three of my seven adult children said they wanted a 25¢ Christmas tree ornament that had special memories for each of them. It is a carousel-shaped ornament with a red metal fan inside that spins around when placed over the heat of a tree bulb. As the children were growing up, they were fascinated with it. I still have the challenge of deciding which one of the three should receive the decoration. However, without asking, I would never have known that it was special to them.”
I had pegged this for my personal finance blog, but I thought my main blog really needed to have this as an entry. I find it interesting that we spend so much time building wealth — but what do our loved ones want when we die? Not money — memories.
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