he was mentioning "I hope my kids dont sell my good stuff when I am gone"
Which of course I answered, well you will be gone so it wont matter.
he continued to talk about how important some of these items are to him. I started telling him what he has to do is make these items important to his kids. make them valuable to them so they will want to keep them in the family. It wont mean anything to those kids to keep something, if it means nothing to them.
there are many things that have been passed down through the family to us that we are proud to be the keepers of. The Bell, The Wardrobe, list is honestly too long to list.
Well, the other day we show up for a family function at my wife's uncle's house. Her dad and her uncle start talking about "that stuff in the garage" for me. We end up going out in the garage and sitting there on the floor is a Kennedy Machinist tool box.
We pick it up (a feat in itself, its is heavy since it is stuffed with tools) and put it on a stool and open it up. My wife's dad and uncle proceed to tell me this was their father's toolbox when he was a machinist. They had apparently both discussed what to do with these tools, and decided they wanted me to have them.
I have to say I was speechless. Not only for the tools, but that they were looking to give this to me.
What was truly great about this was my wife and my son were both there. We stood in that garage and heard stories about where their dad had worked, projects he worked on. The smile on her dad and uncle's faces as they talked about their parents was amazing. These are not people I ever met, but I have heard many stories about them.
As the song says, is heaven wasnt so far away....
I of course accepted these tools and told them I would take care of them.
you have to love someone who has pics of his kids and his wife in the lid of his toolbox.
The tools are awesome, because they can be used. They are still functional in a manual machine shop today as they were back then. I told my wife, the pictures are going to stay in the top of this box.
I am going to add one picture though,
a picture of him.
and of course I cant just take this box and add it to the pile without creating something special. I purchased a base toolbox to shift the machinery tools into, and created a good spot for this toolbox to rest for awhile and get some work in.
Hopefully one of the things I can do on this earth is show my son that things are not what are important. We (his parents) don't do everything we do for the "things" in life. Its not the things themselves that we value, its the memories, the stories, the experiences that are the most important thing. Those memories, stories, experiences and the sentiment from them is what we need to pass down.
Its those stories that I write on this Blog for no one to read, but so that the stories can be shared in some way. Maybe not now, maybe not for a long time, but they are out there to share for that someday that might come.
Those stories bring back those times, and those people to us, even for just a few moments.
that, is what its all about.
DD
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