The last several weeks I’ve been updating you on what’s happening inside my home. We're packing up for renovations and every room has turned into piles. What we need for the next several months in one, what goes to storage in another, and the pile I keep staring at the longest is the things-I'll-deal-with-later pile. That pile is getting bigger and more stressful as we get closer to the date the renovations start.
In one of the bathroom storage drawers I pulled out a small stack of handkerchiefs my mom gave us when my daughter was born. The material is strong but remarkably thin and soft, meant for wiping a baby's face. You wash them and they dry very quickly. My mom used ones like these on me when I was a baby.
My daughter is six so she hasn't needed them in years. They've been sitting in that drawer the whole time.
I honestly don’t know why I still have them. They're in very good condition, I suppose so it feels like a waste. But they’ve finished serving their purpose a long time ago and have been doing nothing but occupying space since.
I left them, again, in things-I'll-deal-with-later pile.
Do I tell my mom
When I left the handkerchief in that pile, the thought came almost right away. Should I tell her?
My mom has kept clothes I wore as a young child and brought them over for my daughter.
When she digs up these pieces of clothing, she proudly tells me that she had kept them in pristine condition for all these years, through moves, through decades of storage, for my child. Except I was probably 3 years old when I wore some of these clothes.
So when I looked at the handkerchiefs in the pile, I could already hear the conversation. If I told her, she'd probably say to keep them for a grandchild. Assuming my daughter wants to have kids one day, which I don't know. And even if she does, I don't know whether this material lasts folded in a drawer for that long.
A short detour on the handkerchief itself
Kimberly-Clark first sold Kleenex in 1924 as a way to remove cold cream, which was a thick facial cleanser women used at night and wiped off before bed. The company had a surplus of Cellucotton left over from the war and was looking for a use for it.
Then letters started coming in from customers who were using the sheets to blow their noses. In 1930, Kimberly-Clark changed the whole campaign. The new line was "the handkerchief you can throw away." Advertising, celebrity endorsements, boxes designed to sit on a nightstand, hygiene claims about germs living in cloth. Sales doubled in the first year.
An object that families had been washing and reusing for generations got reframed, within one marketing cycle, as something you use once and throw out.
I'm not sure every generation fully made the switch. My mom carried tissues in her purse, and still does. I remember my grandparents carried handkerchiefs - my grandmother’s in her purse and my grandfather’s as a pocket one in his suit jacket. I remember them telling me how wasteful it is to use something once and throw it away.
Back to the growing pile
Once I sat back down to look at the pile I needed to deal with, a longer list of questions came with looking at the handkerchiefs. Will the material even hold up for another twenty, thirty years folded in a drawer? Am I assuming my daughter will have kids? What does it mean that I'm assuming it? Would I have kept them anyway, just for the sake of keeping something my mom gave us? Is that sentimental or is that just not making a decision?
It's a lot of overthinking for handkerchiefs. Analysis-paralysis, I guess.
I ended up asking my mom whether she had saved any of mine from when I was a baby.
She said, in a tone that one would use if one were insulted from being asked that question: No! That would be gross, who would keep used handkerchiefs?!
I actually laughed out loud (and felt a small sigh of relief, which was itself funny to notice). I had been standing there seriously considering whether to keep a stack of six-year-old baby handkerchiefs for a theoretical grandchild, and the woman who kept a whole collection of my childhood clothes for decades was the one telling me that would be gross.
A Thought To Carry Forward:
The things we don't throw away aren't always the things we meant to keep.