TheSpoon

Moe (my lovely bride of 39 years) and I possess a serving spoon.  The spoon belonged to my paternal grandmother.  We use it almost daily.  Moe also owns a potato masher, owned by her maternal grandmother, whose loving hands used it for decades in the preparation of meals for family and friends.  We also own a ceramic serving bowl that looks like it has survived a couple of world wars (and perhaps it has).  It belonged to Moe's paternal grandmother.  The bowl has been broken and glued back together no telling how many times.  In that bowl were served countless meals at her Granny's table.  Now we serve meals to our own family and friends in it.  I own a 16 pound sledge hammer that belonged to my maternal grandfather.  I use it regularly (but not daily, thankfully) in my work on the ranch.  Every time I touch it I "feel" Granddad's presence as I'm working.

Dr. Rupert Sheldrake theorizes that there is such a thing morphogenic fields, which he describes as a sort of inherited memory and collection of habits, that passes from one generation to the next.  I believe Dr. Sheldrake is on to something there.  Perhaps even those morphogenic fields find a passage to us through those simple tools of our grandparents.  With each use of those precious artifacts, our memories fondly return to those loving, and loved, grandparents.  Every time.

That spoon probably wouldn't bring a nickel at a garage sell, but it is worth more than gold to us.