Just a little sentimental. . .

Am I sentimental? I don't think so, at least not overly so; I accepted my great-grandmother's bone china tea cups and I have a hard time throwing away anything that bears my mother's handwriting. But I don't frame a lot of photos or hold onto keepsakes forever--I tend to think that a thing that embodies a person is less important than the person her/himself, whom I know is a part of me whether I'm holding something they gave me ten years ago or not.

Now that four people have joined me in life, I am becoming more and more unsentimental. When something breaks, I remind myself that it's just a THING, and one less thing that I have to protect now.

So when Merry broke the heads off my post-pregnancy, new-baby sculpture my sister-in-law gave me long ago, I felt a pang of remorse but I moved on quickly, dropping the heads and then the decapitated figures into the bottom of the trashcan. This graceful woman with her baby perched on her stomach had long perched on the bookcase in Merry's and Elspeth's room, but I didn't think they were particularly attached to it--Merry evidently wasn't, since she unceremoniously yanked a book from underneath the sculpture and showed less than your average sorriness as she recounted how mother and child had lost their noggins. . .which, all in all, was surprising, since she has always been the most sentimental of all the children.

I didn't think again of the sculpture until Elspeth said, "Mommy, I miss that woman with her baby who used to be in our room."

I was surprised that Elspeth cared, but I convinced her that the heads could not be glued back on and we just had to let it go.

The next day, this is what I found:

Poor Elspeth. Better a headless mother and child by her bed than none at all, I guess.