Last night I was cleaning my apartment (although, upon entering, you wouldnt guess it today) and I came across all the trinkets that I have collected of my grandparents’ over the years. At this point in my life, I only have one blood grandmother left (Nana), and she has been in a nursing home down the street from my parents for some time now, her possessions long ago surcommed to the divide and conquer. I began to put all these little things in a box and thought that maybe I should chronicle them so that in case I don’t take the box down from the shelf for a very long time, I remember that they are there.

A dinosaur bone from Utah given to me by my grandpa. I don’t really know the story behind how this came into his posession, but I remember being a small child playing in his backyard when he gave this to me. it was the middle of the summer and I felt like I had been given the most rare gift in the entire world. I think I brought it to school and kids told me it was fake. I guess it might be, but I still think its real. There isnt much that could change my mind now.

A rabbit figure belonging to my Grannie. She had so many figurines, a lover of what we would call ‘kitch.’ They were mosly meadow animals, birds, bunnies, deer, etc. When she passed, I remember sifting through some of her belongings and picking this small figure out, mostly because it looked sad.

A set of small boxes from my Nana. When she was living in her own apartment, I used to go there every day during the summer while my parents were at work. She had a whole collection of boxes then, and she would make me macaroni and cheese every since day if it was what I asked for.

A stained glass ornament of the Polish crest from my Grannie. Another piece I picked out of the box with the rabbit. My grandmother was very proud to be Polish, and fought very late into her life to have her parent’s birth certificates changed. They were born in Poland during the time of three partitions, so their birth places are both Russia.

A harmonica from my grandpa. My mother found this in his desk after cleaning out his residences and gave it to me along with his typewriter that he used to write me letters when he went to Florida in the winter.

Spectacles from my Nana. I have to be so careful with these now. They are falling apart a little on one of the lens.

Finally, little pushpin birds. As I mentioned before, my grannie loved all this meadow life. She was also a very talented flower arranger at one point in her life, and I would guess that she used these birds in her arrangements.