Ask Lemmy

I don't like things much, it feels oppressive to try to hang on to them. I have a very few that I value. A gun cabinet my dad converted to a shelved cabinet. The harmonica my grandpa played. That may be it, actually. My mom gave me many photographs, I suck at organizing and preserving them, not sure why she gave them to me. I have also 2 other furniture pieces from my grandma's house but it's the gun cabinet I won't part with.

I have lived in the same place a long time and not a big believer in heritage - go 10 generations back and you have 1,024 people who are your great-to the power of 10-parents. Anyone who says they are descended from someone is picking and choosing to create a story. So I feel as belonged as I care to, by belonging to the place I live I guess.

I have a couple of things already from relatives who have already left us and expect I might get a few more when others pass on (not for a while yet, I hope). None of them are particularly valuable, but they mean something to me because of who they're from.

I have no descendants, so I expect everything will be discarded when I'm gone.

I kept a lot of stuff from my parents house after they passed. Most of it is still in boxes and I have yet to find the time to really go through it and take inventory.

Among those items there looks to be a lot of things that were kept in their own parents’ homes. China pieces, old collectibles…there is what looks to be a certified Catholic holy relic, which I haven’t the faintest idea what to do with. There is a pretty sizable collection of steins that I’ve kept out of pure sentiment, though I haven’t gone out of my way to set up a place to display them.

Thing is, most of this stuff I took from an outdoor storage shed where they just stuffed anything they didn’t have room for in the house. Had been sitting untouched for decades and was covered in dirt and mouse shit when I finally got to it. Spent a lot of time cleaning and trying to salvage what I could. So to that end I hesitate to call any of this stuff “heirlooms” when it seems to mostly be things they didn’t really value but couldn’t bring themselves to throw or give away.

I have a bedroom set my grandfather made. They’re beautiful, solid, and honestly just my taste. The drawers are made from crates they used to ship their belongings back to the US after living abroad for his work for a few years, so there’s deeper personal history there.

I kept a fair bit of art and a number of trinkets when my other grandparents passed, plus their dining room set. I’ve since gotten a nicer dining room set and the old one is in storage… I couldn’t quite stand to get rid of it, and it would make a good gaming table someday. Plus a rocking chair that was gifted to my grandpa by an organization at the university he taught at.

I had the opportunity to take dishes and things, but skipped most of it because I didn’t feel a connection to them, except for two glasses in a set of bird glasses. I only liked the two and they match; I didn’t need the full set to have the reminder of meals with my grandparents.

These things give me a sense of connection to my family and my past.

Only if it serves a purpose (old tools which are used) or it is small and has associated memories worth the space it takes up. Nothing that continues to exist just because someone else in the family had it.

The idea of an obligation to retain heirlooms because they are heirlooms seems like a recipe for being stuck in the past, because homes aren't museums.

Most of my family were refugees during WW2 and lost pretty much all their belongings, including some truly priceless pieces and properties that are still talked about. I do have a pretty substantial trove of documents and photos dating back to the 1850s though, this was all they were allowed to carry.

I try. I like hand sized mementos. Less likely to lose and not bulky enough to be a burden.

my dad and mom passed.

my sister kept trying to get me to take their junk as heirlooms... i just caved and threw it out later.

It was just junk. Like crappy old broken watches from my dad, and some weird ugly jewerly from my mom. IT was worthless stuff, but for whatever reasons my sister had a lot of sentimental value in it and insisted I had to take it.

I come from a poor family and we never had anything of value to pass down or any 'history' in our family. it's weird to think how I have stuff that is like... way more valuable than anything my parents ever had or my grandparents.

I find heirlooms to be worthless.

It’s difficult to hold on to many heirlooms because of the size of homes between boomers/silent generation giving things up and millennials. I would like solid wood furniture, and I hate to see it thrown out, but it literally doesn’t fit in my home. Furniture isn’t the end of it; decor and many other things I simply don’t have the space for.