And then I remembered it is Father’s Day – Sentimental Sunday

I’ve been on a domestic Decluttering Mission for several months now, and have been going  through cupboards and drawers sorting out what needs to be binned/recycled/moved onto another household who will need or use it.  The theory is that you can’t organise clutter, you can only eliminate it, and we hold onto so much stuff for sentimental reasons – I have pieces of furniture which I hold onto only because I know that they were important to members of my family who are no longer here… but disposing of these items doesn’t mean I’m disposing of the precious memories of that person, so I can do it guilt-free.  If I need to take a photo of the item to remind me, I can store it in my laptop and look at it whenever I want.

I’m not talking about family history heirlooms, such as family bibles or vital documents and irreplaceable photos – no way will you ever wrestle the originals from me, but I may leave them to you in my Will if you ask nicely, meantime you can have a scanned copy 🙂

Today I asked my better half to bring down some boxes from the loft.  Some of them had been up there for nearly 10 years when I last moved house, and I had a feeling that there was a lot of “stuff” hanging around which should now leave.  I was right.  Eight boxes and six bags later, I have five small items which I want to keep and my car is full (back seat as well) with “stuff” to donate to my local cat charity, Lothian Cat Rescue, and I haven’t had a second thought about losing any of it.

But I came upon this, packed away in bubble wrap at the bottom of a box

It was horribly tarnished (rapidly rectified) and not worth a sausage to anyone else (apart from my siblings) but it is a symbol of my Dad’s enthusiasm (and success) at his chosen sport of curling.  Dad has been sadly missed since the year 2000, but this is material evidence of his youth, skill and enthusiasm, when in his late 30’s he won this trophy.  He travelled all over the UK/Canada/US with his Scottish team, and was so keen on curling that eventually Mum gave in and joined a Ladies Team (as revenge, I suspect) – Ford Ladies, to balance up on the amount of time he spent away from home.   Dad gave up curling long before Mum did, and he used to have to fend for himself occasionally when she was playing.  She left little boxes in the fridge marked “Mac Cheese for One” or “Mince & Tatties for One” although he was more than capable of producing a cholesterol-busting meal on his own.

Then I remembered it was Father’s Day, and thought “how odd that I dug this out of my loft today, of all days” – sometimes things are just meant to be found, I suppose.  I’ll wrap it back up and put it in the box in the loft till next time.

Happy Father’s Day to all who are either Fathers, or who miss their Fathers who are no longer here.

Jo 🙂

Sentimental Sunday is a daily blogging theme at GeneaBloggers where bloggers post about a special family memory.