The theme for Week 8 of 2024’s 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge is “Heirlooms.” It’s probably a silly, sentimental notion on my part, but I believe that when we pass down an heirloom from generation to generation, a little piece of us lives on inside it. I don’t mean that in an evil, Harry-Potter-horcruxy way, but in a good way – one that encapsulates all of our best wishes and hopes for the future. It ties us to the generations that came before us, even if we’ve never met them. We can’t hold their hand, but we can hold something in our hands that they held in theirs.
This bowl is one such heirloom. It belonged to my husband’s grandmother, Anya, who passed away years before I met and married her only grandchild. It was a treasured gift from her late husband, Naum, given to her about 75 years ago. When my in-laws married fifty years ago, Anya presented the bowl to her son and his new bride with all of her love and best wishes. She asked them to pass it on to their future child on their wedding day. About twenty-five years later, they did exactly that, handing the bowl to us with all of their love and best wishes for our future.
Anya’s bowl made the journey from Russia to America when my husband and his parents moved here and has graced the table of three generations of this family. In gifting this bowl to the next generation at their wedding, Anya not only created a family heirloom, but a family tradition as well. Someday, when one of our children marries, we’ll fill Anya’s bowl up with all of our love and best wishes for their future and pass it on.
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