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September 22, 2005

Memorial Gift Giving

I am one of those people that enjoy giving special gifts to people, especially in my family. Usually this doesn't necessarily entail a purchased mainstream product... I like things that connotate meaning, have a memory attached, etc. Usually I get these inspirations out-of-the-blue during conversations, internally thinking "wouldn't it be neat if you could do this for this person."

I keep a mental list of things I would like to do for people. Granted I don't have a lot of money right now, I still intend to do them all. Believe it or not, my list is pretty small now... I've managed to scrape and scringe for a good many things I always wanted to do. An example you say?

My mother was married to my father for 13 years before she was divorced. She still had her wedding ring, which was fairly gnarled and unworn. She always said she would like to have it made into a necklace someday so she could wear it... well that triggered my wheels to turning and...

Enter the mother's ring that my brother and I had made for her. The center stone is from her wedding/engagement ring. There are twelve other stones (six diamonds and six rubies - you can't see them all on this mock-up picture). Thirteen stones for thirteen years. Also, my birthstone is diamond, my brother, Ian's, is ruby. She was thrilled to death and wears it everyday, shows it off at work, to her siblings etc. Took quite a bit of sneaking about and running around to get it made for her, but well worth the effort in the end.

While my grandmother was sick, I took it upon myself to hunt down a special, limited book, which pretty much was a historical/pictorial tome concerning the village of her birth. It took me months to find it and send it down there to her. But I was so happy when I did, I even wrote a long letter to her telling her about all the hurdles in place before I finally got my greedy hands on the copy. She died shortly afterward, not really able to enjoy the effort, but I was thankful that I had accomplished my wish nonetheless.

Latest project in the works: I have successfully scanned just about every family photo I can lay my grubby hands upon from our house, and my grandmother's stash. I have several new articles scanned. I have even have access to two boxes of material at my Great Aunt Irva's to go through. This is not counting the ancestral information I have collected as well. I am pondering upon making it all into a nice book for all the family members for christmas sometime. I shall have to come up with a means to write down more family stories though, as two of the senior members (Aunt Irva and Grandfather) won't be about forever, and they are the only ones still about with the old stories and memories.

Got a few more ideas up my sleeve... both involve trips I would like to make to Germany and another I would like to send my mother to Hawaii on. Both are more as a means of a revisiting of the places she has been before. I think it would be great for her to relive that stuff and tell us how things were, what has changed, etc.

I don't know... a part of me likes the challenge of making such things happen. I get a rush out of seeing stuff that takes work and means something more to someone on their face when they see it.

Posted by Ravennacht at September 22, 2005 12:30 AM Posted to Family Matters