What Matters Most to You- Things, Stuff, or People?

I got an email yesterday from a blogger buddy of mine and we talked about broken necklaces. I have a baggie full of pieces of a lovely turquoise, ivory, and silver necklace given to me over ten years ago. I loved this necklace...my grandson...while loving on me...broke it. I had it fixed....my granddaughter was playing with it one day and broke it again. I had it fixed a second time....and then I hung it on my desk drawer at school and broke it again. When it broke this time I put the pieces in the baggie and put it in my jewelry box. I have not missed the necklace...so obviously I don't need it. If I find someone who makes jewelry....I will probably give them the pieces so they can make something equally as beautiful out of it. The broken necklace story though reached back into the bowels of my memory storage bend and found a whole lot of "thing" stories I thought I would write about today. In priming myself for this post I went to dictionary.com and looked up the definitions for the words things, stuff, and possessions. I think it is important that we all understand just exactly what I am talking about. Things were defined as: a plural : possessions, effects b: whatever may be possessed or owned or be the object of a right c: an article of clothing dplural : equipment or utensils especially for a particular purpose 5: an object or entity not precisely designated or capable of being designated . Stuff, not to be confused with the white cloud-like substance in a teddy bear is defined as: 1: materials, supplies, or equipment used in various activities: as aobsolete : military baggage b: personal property. And Possessions were discussed as: 2: something owned, occupied, or controlled : property. To cut to the chase, all of these words refer to items one owns or possesses. How important are things to us? Well...to some they are very important. As a child when it got close to Christmas time my mom would make me clean out my toys and dolls and take them to the Salvation Army in preparation for the new stuff Santa would be bringing me. I never quite understood that concept....but followed her orders and would rid myself of toys, games and dolls I no longer used. (Now, the funny thing here is that my mom forgot this lesson too...she is the biggest pack rat on the face of the earth. If you can save it she does. She does not understand why I would want to give stuff away...I tell her, "because that is what you taught me to do." I have to remember...she is a few cards shy of a full deck in her reasoning skills.) Anyways, One year I donated my entire Barbie collection to my four younger cousins(an action I have kicked myself many times for....do you know what those things are worth????). The point here is that someone else needed something I had and since I was no longer using it I gave it away. I have always done that. I can't tell you the number of things I have donated to the Salvation Army over the years or just given away when someone's house burned or they were down on their luck....the whole fact is...I GAVE! Past tense-because somewhere between there and motherhood....I forgot that skill. When I graduated from college my now ex-husband gave me a crystal apple. I loved it. My oldest daughter was playing around in the house one afternoon....something I had told her numerous times not to do...and the crystal apple was the casualty of her carelessness. It shattered into a bazillion pieces. I came into the room...surveyed that all humanoids were ok...saw my apple...shattered on the floor...and became a screaming banshee. If I live to be 100 I will never forget the look on my daughter's shattered face. I realized in that brief shining moment...that things are not as important as peoples feelings. It was a great experience and object lesson for me. I play guitar. I love my acoustic guitars. I have a beautiful black one that my parents gave me for my birthday one year and a student dropped it and dinged it one day at school....he was mortified. I looked at him and said, "hey, accidents happen and it is just a guitar." Now don't get me wrong....I don't want people deliberately breaking my stuff...but accidents do happen. I also have a gorgeous red acoustic/electric guitar that Frank gave me for my birthday one year. I fret over it all the time...but believe me...if I had to chose between it...or Frank...or one of my kids. I would be at the front of the guitar giveaway line. People come before stuff! There is nothing I possess that is worth more to me than any one of the people I love. That was a hard lesson for me to learn. It took me a while to get that one down, but once I got it down...I had it. The moral of this post: No matter how special something is to you...it is just that...a thing...and you cannot or should not value it above another person's feelings. Have a wonderful Sunday!