It's a stormy weekend here, so it was a day in the house! I tried to do something with today's February word-- Treasure-- for my daily photo. I wasn't sure which treasures to showcase, but in the end I came up with this small assortment. Here are some explanations of what they are, if anybody wants to read their stories:
-Top Row Left: a medallion from the Canadian Armed Forces Personnel Command for participating in the 2021 Victory March. This was an event "created as a virtual way to ensure the continued spirit of CAF participation in the annual International Four Days Marches Nijmegen (4DAAGSE), which was cancelled for the second consecutive year due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic." They expected to make the Victory March an annual event but I don't think they continued it, in the end...
-Top Row Centre: a Star of David that was given to me by the only actually Jewish member of our cast on the closing night of our run of The Dairy of Anne Frank. It's an old piece of costume jewellery that belonged to someone in her family and had eventually come to her. I've never worn it as I'm not Jewish and don't want to offend those who are, but I treasure it deeply.
-Top Row Right: More costume jewelry-- a cameo brooch that belonged to Christopher's grandmother. When Chris and I were dating, he invited me along to a ceremony honouring his late grandfather, who died when C was just a toddler (there's a baseball diamond named after him in Hamilton now). After the ceremony, Chris went off with some cousins for a few minutes and I stayed with their grandmother. While we were alone together she took off the pin she'd worn that day and said she wanted me to have it. Sadly, she didn't live until our wedding-- she actually passed away just days before Chris asked me to marry him. He asked for a minute alone with her when we visited her on her deathbed, and I found out later that he'd told her he was going to propose and showed her my ring. She was the only person who knew before I did. I wore the brooch on our wedding day so we'd have a bit of her with us, in a way.
-Middle: A bracelet that belonged to my paternal grandmother-- an interesting sounding woman whom I never got to meet, who thought that wearing jewelry was bad/wrong but collected it even though she wouldn't wear it! You might think it's a bracelet of British flags, but it's actually a bracelet of United Empire Loyalist flags. Her family left Pennsylvania and came here as Loyalists in the 1780s.
Bottom Row Left: 'the twins' are two little plastic babies from a shower game. About a month after Chris and I got engaged I was invited to a baby shower for an old friend who is married to an RCAF officer. I said I'd have to send a gift, and Chris asked why I wasn't going to attend. I said because they were currently posted to Oklahoma City, and Chris said "So?" Then he drove me all the way to OKC (about 18 hours away), sat through a baby shower with me and 20-or-so air force wives, then turned around and brought us home again! The girls insisted that if he stayed he had to participate, and they especially enjoyed making him play the one game with these little plastic babies; I kept them as a souvenir.
-Bottom Row Right: These little wooden shoes belonged to my mother, but I don't know for sure where they came from. My mother never visited Netherlands and the only person in the family who did, so far as we know, was her dad; he spent a long time there towards the end of the Second World War and in the period immediately following. The shoes appear to be quite old and handmade, and I believe my mum already had them when my dad met her as a teen, so we think they might be something my granddad brought back from the war with him, but that's not certain.
A very beautiful read… all priceless…