You guys do know that not everybody is as sentimental as you are? I am not, it doesn't make me a bad guy, and it certainly helps with the clutter in the house. It isn't that I didn't care about my grandparents, or didn't love them, or that I had something against them, I loved them dearly, and cherish their memories, I just don't want their crap.

I remember when my mothers parents died, the rest of the family went nuts fighting over who got what, I witnessed them rip wounds in each other that will never heal, and it was over junk, a shirt that nobody would ever wear, a hideous pendant. Army Ribbons that none of them even know what were, they couldn't tell a good behaviour medal from a CMH. It was beyond disgusting, I lost respect for some of them for life. It was 25 years ago, and to this day some of them I wouldn't piss on if their wig was on fire. Maybe that has something to do with it.

If keeping relics from the past is the only way you can manage to maintain a link with the past, and your departed family members, then go ahead and keep the stuff (although you should at least display the stuff, not stick it in a box in the closet, as that isn't much different than selling it). I told my parents long ago that I didn't want anything from them when they died, no property, no effects, no money, nothing, and that if they left anything to me I would probably donate it to charity, or throw it in the dumpster, and I was dead serious.

To him they were tools, some people just don't bond emotionally with their tools. It wasn't as if he was selling them for his next fix, he probably thought about it a little. He realized he had no use for them, and wasn't at all interested in them, and knew that you were the kind of guy who would appreciate what they were, and what they might mean to somebody.

You see, that is where you and I differ, you need a relic to believe that the past happened, I don't. I have no problem making a connection between the past and myself without artifacts. I don't have to have my great great grandfathers rifle to believe that he fought in the civil war. I saw my father fly helicopters hundreds of times, I don't need to hold on to his aviators wings to remind me. I don't think you are a lesser person, or that you love the objects more than the people because you associate them that way, but please keep in mind that not everybody associates objects with their loved ones. I am the one who got rid of just about everything issued to me when I got out of the Army, if it wasn't something that I felt I had a need for, it was sold at a yard sale. I let the kids have some of the stuff, LBE, canteens, stuff like that, but not so much as keep sakes, but as toys that they could play with.

Sure, there are some people out there who just don't care, and that is also their prerogative, I don't hold it against them either, I am sure they have their reasons for it. Being able to accept that other people do things differently is something I got from my parents that I will not throw away, if more people left that to their kids instead of musty heirlooms, the world would be a better place.