If you were given a box of every material thing you have ever lost.....

Linda

Linda

Senior Member
Location
Central California foothills
If you were given access to a box of every material thing you had lost over your lifetime, but only allowed to keep one item, what would you keep?
(Material things only. Not people, feelings, health, etc.)



 

When I was a child, I rarely got Birthday or Christmas presents from my parents , my father predominately was the one who wouldn't allow it, but occasionally my mother would put a little money away from the housekeeping and save and buy something small for me. One year for example when I was about 11 she bought me a little blue leather handbag...


On my 13th birthday she bought me a tiny heart shaped Gold signet ring, and I loved it, Over the moon with it.... however I wasn't allowed to wear it in front of my father lest he demand where I'd got it.9ct-yellow-gold-14mm-heart-shaped-signet-ring.jpg

So, getting ready for Girl Guides one night, and wearing my uniform, I heard him coming home, and quickly popped my ring into my tunic shirt pocket so he wouldn't see it.

Not being permitted to wear jewellery at Guides it stayed in my (buttoned) pocket until I got home...and when I went in to say goodnight to my mother I bent over and we both heard the tinkle of the ring fall out of my pocket onto the polished wooden floor. MY Ring I cried in anguish ( it's true I did ).... :)...and we both immediately searched every inch of that floor...every inch. Not just that day but subsequent days...and the ring never was found. Even when we moved from that house about 6 months later and the room was completely bare we conducted another search, but we never did find it...and it was the very last gift my mother gave me!!
 

Actually I still have it and always will. A copy of Erma Bombeck's "The Grass is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank". I got it for Christmas in the 70's. Me and my Mom both loved Erma and my Mom wrote a Christmas greeting in the front. Good book and great memories.
 
I'm sure there must have been, but I really can't think of anything that I've lost that had any real meaning for me. This, in spite of being an overly sentimental guy. I guess we still have the things that really meant anything. Nothing of great monetary value.
My most precious possession is a coffee mug that my wife bought me when I lost my job years ago. On the cup it says "Pencils 2cts" and was filled with pencils and a pamphlet "How to Make a Million Dollars Selling Pencils"! No whining. No recrimination. Just complete support and a good laugh when it was needed.
 
Hollydolly your ring story really touched my heart and I'm glad you still have it in your mind and heart. Wouldn't it be wonderful if somehow you found it again? And I've been touched by what the rest of you wrote here too. I am so busy today getting ready for company, but I will think of something I've lost to write about on here too.....in a day or two.
 
I don't lose things very often, but right now am worried that I've managed to lose something of real value to me. It's a box I sent via UPS to imemories, containing an old VHS tape of
my first granddaughter, Kelly, at age 1, absolutely adorable. (She's turning 30 next month!) It was taken on a visit to our house, and this tape was the only copy. I had forgotten all about it, and recently found it, and decided to have them make two DVD's of it, one for Kelly and one for her parents.

The imemories company has a deal where you send them $15 for special packaging which they send to you along with an address label, and then you enclose your item and put the label on the
box, bring it to the nearest UPS store, and it gets sent to them free of charge. I stupidly decided to do this just before Christmas, when the store, of course, was very crowded. The bored looking
girl behind the counter made a general announcement that "If you're just dropping off something, just put it on the counter over there, you don't have to wait." So I did. It wasn't until I got
home that it occurred to me that I had no receipt, no tracking number, nothing to prove that I had given it to them.

It's been about ten days. I've used imemories before, and they always notify me when my items have been received. Nothing so far. They are in Arizona, so it does take a while. But I'm beginning
to worry that this priceless tape may have gotten lost in the shuffle. Hope I'm wrong.
 
A demitasse tea set I had picked up in San Diego on vacation some 30 years ago, I really liked that display set. Most other sentimental things I've managed to hold on to like my sister's old clock even though most of the glass is broken off of it by now from several moves, I also held on to other items of hers of which I don't intend to part unless forced. But back to what I want that I didn't salvage, that demitasse set, yep, that is what came to mind in the immediate. :)

On second thought, I want the art book containing all the paintings of great artist, that was a beautiful coffee table book filled with some great pieces, hmmmm, I think I want that more, now I'm having a hard time deciding. I probably could find the book on Amazon, but, I want the exact tea-set chip and all. :D
 
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Linda....this is actually a really fascinating question..I have been asking everyone at work today...and it's stopped people in it's tracks and really made them think hard.. definitely a food for thought topic !!:D
 
I've moved so many times and many things have disappeared or got lost in the shuffle - jewelry, clothing, tchochkes, on and on it goes, but nothing especially meaningful comes to mind right now comes to mind that I'm missing, except maybe some photographs I threw out that I now wish I had kept.
 
Now that I'm alone, I guess that knowlege has gotten around and I have had a lot of thefts this year. A lot of things have been stollen, but the one thing they took was a box of cd's that my husband did recording of love letters, and funny stories of our life together. Sometimes they were just about his dreams for our future. I loved just being able to hears the sound of his voice, and now I never will again.
 
...a diamond ring my husband gave me, the many plants and trees that I have planted over the years that died and a hand made quilt my grandmother made.
 
I would like to find a video that we took of our youngest daughter at a specific 'playday' horseshow. She was 12 years old and we were at a very windy arena and just a kilometre across an open field was a train track. Ambra, her horse, was away from her buddy, hated the whistling wind and the train freaked her out. The result was that in the first class of the day, she was rebelling every step and almost backed over the judge in the centre because she wouldn't stand still.

I think there were about six classes that day for 'us', and between each class, Holly took her into the warm up ring and trained her and made her focus on behaving and listening. Actually mostly she just backed up from one end of the ring to the other. We figured that if Ambra wanted to back up so badly (and not stop) we would make her do that until finally she didn't like doing it anymore.

Needless to say, no ribbons in the first five classes but the last one, she got the blue ribbon and not for 'Most Improved', but Best in Class and the judge came up and complimented her on what a marvellous improvement she'd made with her horse! She was absolutely triumphant and I got it all on video! You could hear the wind moaning across the grass and see every miserable step and then.....that terrific end! Well that was 17 years ago and we've mislaid it along the way. I think it's here somewhere but couldn't tell you where in amongst the piles of cd's and videos and such. That's what I'd like to find.
 
Ina said:
Now that I'm alone, I guess that knowlege has gotten around and I have had a lot of thefts this year. A lot of things have been stollen, but the one thing they took was a box of cd's that my husband did recording of love letters, and funny stories of our life together. Sometimes they were just about his dreams for our future. I loved just being able to hears the sound of his voice, and now I never will again.
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Oh Ina, I'm so sorry to hear that! That must have broken your heart and to lose the sound of his voice a second time is so unfair!

Those kinds of recordings are so precious.
 
Ina said:
Now that I'm alone, I guess that knowlege has gotten around and I have had a lot of thefts this year. A lot of things have been stollen, but the one thing they took was a box of cd's that my husband did recording of love letters, and funny stories of our life together. Sometimes they were just about his dreams for our future. I loved just being able to hears the sound of his voice, and now I never will again.
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Oh Ina.... I cannot even begin to understand how you're feeling now....this is just beyond awful...to lose Michael twice...and to lose him the second time to thieving scumbags is just heartbreaking!! :(
 

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