That is, unless it’s museum quality like this one, listed on eBay for $49,995:

But for garden-variety souvenirs like these:

As cute as they are, they’re worthless except perhaps as sentimental memorabilia to the person who bought them or received them as a gift some 30 or more years ago.

And yes . . . that person would be me. I actually have several sets, my two favorites being these political gems:

Like most people, I have a lot of other treasured items as well, collected over a lifetime of travel, gift-receiving, and impulse buying. For me, each piece has a memory attached, and so I continue to make room for them, dusting and rearranging them as my mood dictates.

But I worry about what will happen to my collection when I’m gone: the metal statuette of the Fiddler on the Roof; the totem pole and Inukshuk from Alaska; the Russian “Babushka” and “Dedushka” figurines from the Hillwood Museum in Washington; the photographs I took in London, and Budapest, and Prague, and Moscow, that I had framed and still proudly display on my walls.

I know what my children will do with the more expensive items — the china, crystal, and the few pieces of jewelry and antiques that I’ve bequeathed to them in my Will. They may keep one or two items out of sentiment; but most will not suit their more contemporary tastes, and will be sold.

And that’s okay, because those are not the things that mean the most to me. It’s the little things — like the small drawing of a church, bought in 1988 from the artist in the ancient capital of Mtskheta, Georgia; the blue-and-white Lomonosov porcelain egg from a monastery in St. Petersburg (when it was still Leningrad); or the malachite and ivory sailboat that was a gift from the son of the Zairian Ambassador to the U.S. back in the early ‘80s. Their monetary value is negligible; but they mean the world to me.

And now, as I sit here writing about them, I know that I can’t just leave their fate in someone else’s hands. And I can’t have them buried with me, because I have chosen to be cremated. But I can provide for them in a codicil to my Will, instructing that they be donated to the Salvation Army, where hopefully each will find a new home with someone who falls in love with them just because they’re beautiful.

Perhaps the saddest part of growing old is knowing that every trace of the person you have been will soon disappear, and eventually be forgotten by all but a few descendants. I can’t prevent the inevitable; but I can try to keep my little treasures from being tossed onto a trash heap.

A lifetime of memories deserves better than that.

Just sayin’ . . .

Brendochka
1/8/26