Heirlooms of Love… What Are You Leaving Behind?

Every which way I turn these days there are festivals. Fall festivals, sonker festivals, wine festivals, pumpkin and apple festivals, and my favorite, book festivals.


It amazes me the creative ability that some people possess. This past weekend while signing books at a festival I met so many talented artists. The booth on one side of me was filled with homemade pumpkins. What is a homemade pumpkin you might ask? Well, these pumpkins were made from horseshoes. Yes, used horse, mule, and donkey shoes. The nails had been pulled out and they were sanded, painted a muted color of orange and arranged in a way that formed a perfect pumpkin shape. Then one horseshoe was cut in half and painted green then welded to the top making the stem. These iron pumpkins were the talk of the two-day event. They sold like hotcakes to a starving man for twenty bucks each.


The lady who crafted this original design also made other objects from thrown away items. A turtle was made from a shovel, a rabbit from a shoehorn, and a kitty cat and hoot owl from some other discarded junkyard pieces. The woman?s name was Kim, but I?ll always remember her as the horseshoe lady.


Then across the way from my booth was a tent called ?The Bag Lady.? It took me most of the first day to figure out exactly what those things were hanging all around her tent. They were sort of fashioned like a rag doll, but I found out they were much more useful. Their full skirts with elastic around the bottom were made to cram plastic grocery bags up in. ?The Bag Lady? had made a holder for our bags. Da!


Other tents held handmade quilts, capes and floral arrangements. One of my favorite booths was on the other side of mine. Under this tent was the work of Johnny Pardue. Johnny is a five-day a week laborer just like most of us. But in his spare time he is a master potter. As I listened to him telling others of his love to mold and form clay, and how he fired and mixed his own glaze I watched a glitter in his wife Janet?s eyes. She is so proud of her husband, and rightly so. Johnny calls his pottery business a hobby. I call it leaving behind a legacy of heirlooms. The bottom of each piece is engraved with his last name, ?Pardue? and the date. Years from now ancestors of the ones who bought his pieces will glance at his name and he will be remembered as Johnny, the pottery man.


Have you ever wondered how you will be remembered? Do you sew or embroider fancy pieces of eyelet or stitch lovely quilts from hand-me-down clothes? Do you create recipes that will be passed from generation to generation? Or do you simply live your life in a way that creates precious memories? Recollections of a grandmother who took the time to pile fallen leaves in a big mound for you to jump in. A mother who loved you so much she hugged you too tight, and a dad who never hugged you but you knew he loved you anyway.


All kinds of things can bear your name and bring remembrances. For instance there is a road in a near by community named, ?Preacher Field Road.? C.F. Fields was the pastor at my home church, Pleasant Ridge Baptist from 1923-1928. I don?t really know if he lived on this road or not. Someone told me one time that he is buried in a field over looking Carter Falls on the road. Either way Preacher Fields will always be remembered. Why, because his name is written down on a road sign.


Some people will never be forgotten: Kings, queens, presidents, etc. But what about just common folk like you and me? Five or six generations from now will anyone have passed down the stories of you? Will anyone remember the good or bad things you did? Maybe, but probably not.


There is one sure way to know you?ll be remembered. Write your life down. The story doesn?t have to be filled with fancy words or poetic script. Just simply mark down things from as far back as you can remember. Let others in the family tell you stories and write those down too. Then one hundred years from now, one of your ancestors will open up the hand written notebook and they?ll say, ?Look. Here?s a story about my?great-grandpa.? And they?ll glance at the name of the author, and they?ll remember you as the one who took the time to write your family?s legacy.


Heirlooms do not have to be gold coins, pieces of antique furniture or handmade items. Heirlooms of love can be found in the notes, letters and journals of the ones who have come before us. These items bear the heart and soul of our ancestors.


When I?m gone I think I will be remembered as the woman who wrote things down. No one will probably remember how much I loved my family or that I had rather eat a homemade meal than be taken to a fancy restaurant. But one day a hundred years from now someone will pick up one of my novels and they will read it and know I was someone who had a great love for others in her heart. I pray my writing will always have a message of hope in it.


This is one of my favorite, original quotes. ?Most everything will eventually be forgotten. The spoken word will fade with time, but the written word lives forever.?





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