So I'm not generally a covetous person, I tend to love things, and people, with an open hand.  I love what I love for the qualities that make it lovable to me, but I care more that the thing is loved or that the person is healthy and happy than that they're mine. I tend to let people go more than most people do not because I don't care, not because I wouldn't want them in my own life for my sake -- but because I care more that they be happy than that be mine. I don't feel the need to burden people with my presence unless they want, unless they make it clear to me that my absence is the burden as opposed to my presence.  As for things, I get joy from things that please me, but most of them I'd be equally pleased with something else that serves the function and I find aesthetically or sensually pleasing.

So of all my grandparent's things (now my grandmother's things, my sparrow grandma) there have only been 3 things I've ever wanted. There are many things that I admired, many things I liked, many things I loved -- but only 3 I desired for myself. There are some that I liked enough they'd make me happy to have (my grandfather's sweater which my father has, the Seder plate my grandma has because I started cooking/helping her with the Seder and Thanksgiving when I was in middle school, the giant saddlebags that were in the living room that my parents have, the old samovar from Russia that my parents also have, my grandma's weighted key digital piano I have,  my grandfather's green metal desk and old wooden chair that were his grandfather's before him -- both of which I have, the old yellow toy chest from the playroom that I've been told was my Aunt Linda's when she was a little girl on the farm and which I also have and have repainted yellow, the painted wood cabinet that was in the kids playroom and had all our books and coloring books and markers/crayons which my Uncle Steve/Aunt Sondra have, the framed oversized poster photograph of Jack who was my Uncle Jeff's dog then my dad's then my grandparents and then our very first shop dog at our family computer store that's older than I am... I also have this sentimental wish that I could have had the old tape of Giant Steps that was in my grandfather's car, even though he bought me a CD for it was the first CD I ever owned, on my last birthday he could come shopping with us. (Family tradition -- at birthdays, my grandparents take/took the grandchildren while under 21 out for a special dinner anywhere of their choice and to go shopping at any store of their choice to buy anything they want within a budget they were given.) So I have the copy of Coltrane's Giant Steps that my grandfather bought me and a nother copy I could listen to in case of scratching it -- but I'd have liked to have had the old worn out tape that I would always put in every time I got into his car. but nobody ever knew what happened to it, not even my grandma...just one of those little things that disappeared during the grief and bereavement and letting go process. I also have things I own that belonged to my great grandparents that I love for aesthetic reasons and after hearing the stories of it but which I have no personal memories attached to these items.) These are all things that I love, but that if they went to other people in the family who also loved them, I'd be okay with it.

But there are three things my grandparents had that I coveted, that I wanted for myself.

1)

2) The giant tapestry, about 4' tall and 8' wide, that hung over the daybed in the playroom when I was a child. It's a reprint on tapestry in a red velvet matte and gorgeous gilt wood frame -- but all the color is bleached out of it from my grandparents having it in the sun when my father was in high school.  It's of a 17th century bar wench and a couple musicians surrounded by wine barrels. I spent a lot of hours laying on the daybed reading in the sunshine with the tapestry hanging above me and me looking up at every time I wanted a break to think about something particularly lovely/surprising/worth thinking over in the book. And when Shauna and Sabra were very little, there were multiple rainy days where we'd sit and invent stories of the tapestry, mostly m inventing them as I was the one who always made up the games and stories and then we each got to play our own characters however we wanted in that framework and any plot twist anyone threw into it became new canon, lol. But the stories, the setup, that was me typically -- especially when they were too bored or squirrelly or overtired to focus on imagining or playing a game. I thought that when grandma redid that room to make it into Richard's office that she had sold it. She told me she didn't know what happened to it, thought it got sold since nobody had said they wanted it... I was utterly devastated as it was the third most important thing to me of all the things they owned.  When my Uncle Jeff was going through an incredibly messy divorce and I was watching his kids (the kids he wanted because he'd never had kids and she never wanted as she had 3 grown kids from a previous failed marriage but she let him reverse his vasectomy and agreed to have them to try to keep him and let him name his son (the first male grandkid, all of us 9 grandkids besides Teddy are girls) Theodore after my grandpa Ted -- then when their relationship went sour did everything she could to keep Teddy and Maddie away from him and poison them against him.... Like I said, a VERY messy divorce.)  Anyway, during the first summer he had custody of the kids as the divorce was happening, I watched my cousins during the day and gave them a structured fun summer with me and my dog and someone they loved they could talk to when they were hurting from how messy the divorce was. And then I came in to get hours in at work at night/weekends,and still went to lots of concerts on the weekend, lol. While this was happening and they still had shared assets, Gail sold all his power tools (he's a now retired construction worker and carpenter -- so these were his actual livelihood) a motorcycle he had in parts to put together he'd promised Teddy he'd wait so they couldd build it together once Teddy was a bit bigger. So he had reason to be concerned and asked me if he could put a couple things he had of sentimental value in my storage closet. two of them were carved wooden chairs that need a little TLC (my favorite of the two is the rocking chair with the Nordic wind god across it that his first exwife found and stripped the finish off and currently has some cracks but I use as is -- it's the most beautiful rocking chair I've ever seen and the most comfortable I've ever sat in) AND the tapestry from my grandmother. I teared up and choked up told him how much I'd always loved it and thought she'd sold it and it was all I could do not to bawl because I was so happy and he said, "You know what, I have no idea when I'll have a house I can put these chairs or hang this tapestry and I can never repay you for how much you've helped me and the kids this summer. I want you to just have these two things, and the other chair if you want to try to fix the broken seat on it. That makes me even happier than if I had them."

It's the third most important to me, and I already have the tapestry. As a gift from my uncle when I hadn't even known he had it....

2) The marble lion. When I was a very small toddler, my grandfather would hold me on it while I rode on it, as he did with his boys before me and as his father had with him which was one of his few memories of his own father. Nobody knows how old it is, but it was my in my grandfather's side of the family when he was a very small toddler, back during WWII. My sister never liked riding it but she loves how classy regal it is, Shauna and Sabra were too little when he was sick/died for it, and Teddy/Maddie/the twins were all scared of the lion thought it guarded the wine glasses and wine bottle that she had next to it after marrying Richard and so the 4 of them would get yelled at any time they got too close to be sure they'd not break the glass. Of all the grandkids, I'm the one who loves it. And as the youngest of his siblings, my dad loves it most followed by Uncle Jeff. My grandma had it in her head it should go to a boy because she mostly remembered boys riding it and for some reason thought it ought to go to Teddy even though he never had a connection other than getting yelled at for trying to go near it -- until I reminded her that I also had ridden the lion and showed her the pictures of it. She still wants it to go to a boy but has decided it shall go to my father and it will be for him and Miche/me to figure out where it goes from there. Jack is already getting too big to ride on it and Mo will be by the time she'd have the opportunity. Miche said it would like nice at their place and they'd love it, but not as much as me so if I want it, and especially if I have kids of the right size/age, she'd be happy to know it ended up with me and stayed in the family and only asked that I offer it to her sooner than ever sell it. It's the second most important thing to me they own.

 It's the second most important to me, and it's to go to my father and it's verbally understood that I'm to have it after him unless I don't want it.  Honestly though, after me having it, I'd love for it to go to my nephew Jack rather than any of my own kids I might have...because my nephew is the reincarnation of my grandfather, and he remembers things my sister never even knew that are memories I shared with my grandpa that he's brought up to me. He may be turning 4 at the end of this month, but in a lot of ways he's a very serious little man and it's meant a lot to both him and me for me to be able to teach and do things with him that my grandfather taught me and did with me when I was a small. child....Which is why even if the marble lion goes to me, if Jack has any interest in it I'd consider his claim on it to have precedence over any children I might have no matter how much they'd love it.... Because it was Jack's when Jack was Grandpa Ted. And that would feel right somehow.

3) The thing I've always wanted most of all is the grandfather clock. It's nearly 8ft tall, solid dark wood with heroes and lions all over it and carved all over then has a gilded and mother of pearl face and a large bronze pendulum inside. Everyone in the family loves and adores it. When I was very little, I remember my grandfather lifting me up to sit on his shoulder and opening it up and explaining to me how the gears work and how to wind it and then whenever I was visiting, my grandparents would let me carefully wind it with one of them holding me up or holding me steady on a stepstool/ladder. It's been stopped ever since grandpa died -- because my grandmother didn't know how to wind it and the one time she had me do it, the sound of the pendulum swinging and the ticking of it made her cry for missing him and for how much it sounded like a heart. So it's been silent ever since, and we don't actually know if the mechanism inside it still works. It also got some cracks in the woodwork part which my Uncle jeff has meticulously repaired as needed. And because of that, grandma always said and everyone felt it fair, that as the eldest and the one who took care of the clock itself, he'd have first right to the clock. And that was fair and right and we all agreed -- things go first dibs to children and Jeff had taken care of it these past 25 years even if it has been silent. Everyone knows how much I love it and want it, but everyone wants it and I always agreed that Jeff should get it if he wants it.

The last time grandma and I talked about the clock was about a month or so ago. And she started telling me how NOBODY wanted it. How it didn't even work and everyone has digital clocks now anyway and the heavy dark wood isn't even trendy anymore and how someone, Sabra she thought, had expected it to be worth quite a lot but after getting it appraised it isn't any longer worth as much as she thought but that she'd sell it and then split the money between the four kids evenly. I was devastated and heartbroken and tried to argue her out of it about how it IS my aesthetic exactly and I'd take good care of it and I DO want it and she just dug in her heels kept insisting this is what she'd do with it.... So I realized I was getting nowhere and shut up and when i saw my parents that evening I said, "Alright da. I have something I need your help with. You might have to be sneaky, but I think if you help me, we can make this okay." So I told him grandma's plan she'd told me regarding the clock and how upset I was over it but she hadn't listened to me over it and was going to sell it -- and I asked him to be involved with the sale/removal to find out (or to "broker" the selling to an antique shop) and then to make sure it got to me and that grandma got paid whatever she felt it was worth and I'd please borrow the money and pay him back but I refused to see it leave the family and if paying cash for it andsubterfuge was the only way then damnit I would! He promised to help me and to see where things were with grandma about it.

Yesterday, after having lunch and then taking her shopping, she told me that the grandfather clock was mine -- that my dad and all the kids know and felt it was fair especially with how much I help her out driving her around running her errands (which the kids do, but none of the other grandkids do for her) She said that it was mine even though everyone wanted it they'd agreed it's to go to me whenever she was ready to downsize move out and and that she'd just be teasing me yanking my chain the day she told me she'd sell it. (AND MY PARENTS KNEW and they all had a huge laugh at my resourcefulness for a backup plan if she really was going to be so stubborn about selling it - but my parents had promised grandma after I approached them with my secondary plan that grandma would get to tell me.) The only caveat she put on it was that AFTER it was mine, I was to get it going again, to find a clock repairman  and get the clock ticking again and to keep it in good condition and ticking. Which of course I would. I have no idea where you FIND someone who can get a clock working in the modern world, but that's a problem for me to solve another day.

I was utterly speechless and tearing up with joy and could only just hug her and hug her and hug her til I finally whispered "thank you! O thank you grandma!" We're going to keep it at her condo, in the hallway by the door,  where it's been since she and grandpa moved in there - but when she downsizes moves to assisted living the clock will come to live with me.

I'm still completely in shock by it -- I genuinely never expected I'd ACTUALLY get to end up with it as a gift from her.... And then this last month or two I've been trying to accept it might get sold and I might not get it even with my father's help to be sneaky if she DID sell it. And here she'd already decided I should have it and talked to her kids about it and they agreed out of gratitude for the care and help I gave her just because I love her......

She got me good with that one, lol. But I'm so happy you have no idea!!! I'll have to figure out how to get it working again and if it needs any woodowrking TLC, but I'm so happy right now about it!!!!

The giant tapestry, the marble lion, and the wooden grandfather clock. these three things. Never thought they'd end up in my care, much as I have always coveted them and seen precogs of them in my someday house..... But I have 1 and now 1 is promised (both as a thank yous for care and love I'd have showered on the people involved anyway) and the 3rd promised to my father of the 4 kids.... I still don't quite understand how I got so lucky....

(From my other grandma, the only thing I ever covetted was her large floor harp... And she sold it to a colleague at the universitywhen they retired moved to Hawaii. They had many many lovely things, and I have some absolutely incredible jewelry and gorgeous artwork and well-loved books that I've inherited from her and that I love and makes me think of her every time...and I have things that belonged to Rene (my great-great-aunt Irene who died when I was in high school) and my great-grandma I never met... But the only thing I WANTED from Grandma Mitsy was the floor harp I was allowed to play my random made up melodies on as a child provided I was careful and I didn't play anything that would be unpleasant for people to hear.... I can always buy me another harp at some point. But it won't be the same. No matter how much I love it, it won't be THAT harp. Y'know? It's not the end of the world, just a bit of wistfulness wish in me that will always be there.)