A recent post by a friend and fellow blogger, Aunt JoAnn https://auntjoannblog.com/, made me think about some long put away bells that my mom collected (small collection thankfully)! Pretty little bells from her travels. Others collected postcards and various trinkets as souvenirs, but for my mom, it was always bells. Oh the bells! The bells!

This little bell is only 3 inches tall and about 2.5 inches at the base. It often sat near our dining table so it naturally became an unofficial dinner bell. It has a lovely soft “tinkle” sound.

The colors are beautiful and the flowers are lovely. It’s one of her prettiest bells.

We don’t collect bells and really have no place to display them. When your parents have passed you naturally inherit their collections of things and when your children don’t want these items (no room for them even if they wanted them) we’re left with what to do with them.

It’s a shame really, but the reality is that as we age our children will be faced with the same problems we’re facing now… no room in our downsized homes for such stuff. So what to do with the things that tie us to our past. No easy answers – we’re reminded just how fragile life is and how our homes are almost always in some sort of danger (Hurricane Harvey and the flooding). We lost some very personal items when Hurricane Hugo (1989) roared across Puerto Rico trashing our home. We were gone, our cats were safe but many things (from my mom) were destroyed (including some of her bells) in the rains that blew through our broken windows.

So that brings me to thinking about the latest disaster in Texas and along the Gulf Coast… some people lost their lives, families are torn apart, some will lose their jobs forever, their stuff is wet and in some cases swept away in the flood – damaged and destroyed. But they will have memories of the better times and hopefully will be able to put their lives back together again.

It’s amazing how one post in a lovely blog can help to recall some cherished memories. The power of words and the gift of memory.

Chris ^.^