There are things in life that are precious.  They stay with us throughout our lives, sometimes in physical form, sometimes only in memory.  They glow in the times of love and laughter and manage to survive the pain of darker times.  I’m not talking about precious stones or gold or money I am talking about the simple things that we hold close to our hearts and we will do everything we can to make sure that they are not forever lost.

There are many things in my life I have lost.  Precious things which have broken my heart and trampled my soul into the dirt; things which will never be recovered. 

I have lost precious relationships through distance, time, misunderstandings, and death.  I have lost precious items through poor choices, financial destruction, and ill health.  I’ve lost people I love and all the potential which that love may have held, but I also have managed to hold on to a handful of small things which are so very precious to me: a photo of my first husband taken when a dream of his was realised just a few months before his death and another photo of myself with my daughter who shared a rare smile. 

I have my teddy bear.  Special Ted.  He belonged to an aunt, who gave him to me when I was born.  He’s a Steffi with articulated arms, legs and head and a squeak in his belly which still works – but you do have to give him a good thump to make him squeak.  He’s close to 100 years old and he shares space in my bedroom with Angela my Rosebud doll given to me by my mother for my fourth birthday in 1959.  She still wears the white dress and petticoat, and the red coat and hat which my mother made for her.  I had the identical outfit.  She was special because she had eyes which closed when you lay her down and opened when you picked her up.  She no longer has her original eyes – my sister’s curiosity about how they worked required Angela to go to the dolls hospital to have her eyes fixed. 

There are also some simple items which remain part of my every day life.  They are cared for in a way that prevents them from being lost or broken:  little things that no-one else can understand their importance to me, like the teaspoons in my kitchen drawer.  The ones I use every day to make coffee or measure ingredients.  They are all that remain of the cutlery set my first husband and I bought when we migrated to Australia in 1991.  But the item I want to particularly mention today is one which I use every day and have done since the mid 1980’s.  It’s a small glass jar, with a green plastic lid and a picture of leaves and flowers etched into the glass.  It’s the kind of jar that you get at a dollar shop.  Cheap, mass produced, nothing particularly special to show why it should be so close to my heart. 

This jar was first given to my daughter for her 8^th birthday.  A school friend gave it to her filled with sweets.  My daughter ate the sweets and then gave the empty jar to me.  A simple giving, no major drama or presentation, just a “Can you use this mum.  I don’t need it.” Since then it has held sweets, sugar, herbs, beads, sewing pins, pencils, ear-rings, hair grips, cotton wool balls and more.  Right now, it sits on my desk next to my laptop and it is holding stitch markers used in my crochet projects.  I’m crocheting the final row of a massive blanket I have spent about a year making and my next crochet project is to finish the temperature blanket I have started representing my daughter’s birth year.  The glass jar will be with me right through the making of several thousand little puffy stitches each representing a hug for my daughter.  Two whole rows of hugs for each day of her first year of life, one in a colour representing the highest temperature of that day and one row showing a colour representing the lowest temperature of that day.  And each row will be celebrated by a stitch holder which is stored in that glass jar my daughter gave to me over 40 years ago.  A glass jar filled with so much more than mundane everyday things.  It is filled with many, many precious memories.

Do you have special items which are precious to you?  Something filled with memory, a holder of your dreams?  How long has it been since you sat with it in your hands and allowed the memories attached to that item to flow through your mind and through your soul.  Memories that are bitter-sweet, joyous, or dark?  Wherever they take you, they are all so very precious.