Heirlooms Are For The Living
and why they are inherently bisexual.
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A while back, I spent a bunch of time developing a script about the idea of heirlooms and how my generation (firmly millennial) interacts with them. The thesis is simple: we don’t care about items the way older generations do/did. It’s nothing personal against our elders, but the valuable things to those generations often hold different weights for us. I’m thinking of things like fine china dinnerware. That is a thing for certain generations, but my most prized piece of dinnerware is a mug my mother-in-law gave me from Homegoods. It says, “Donut touch my Coffee,” and I love it.
It’s not hard to imagine a time where expensive flatware seemed important, but the things we buy for ourselves are just different these days. Our big-ticket items and status symbols are things like cars and iPhones. And they’re not lifelong investments but, rather, replaced or upgraded every other year. New is often more valuable than aged.
I think of a woman picking out that china dinnerware and imagining it may be passed down to her grandchildren and maybe their children after that. What new things have I acquired in my own life that would be passed down in that way? My West Elm furniture? My Macbook? My houseplant George? Since my husband and I would have to literally purchase a child to be parents, does that mean that the child itself would be an heirloom? You know, like…for the world?
Clearly, I have a lot of thoughts on the subject. Heirlooms are a fun concept to toil around with! But the pages of that heirloom script are sitting in my “drawer” right now. (This is a digital junk drawer for forgotten writing.) I saw a press release about someone else developing a television show based on the same heirlooms idea, so I stepped away from the play before I ever finished it. I know it’s super annoying, but it happens all the time. It’s just the biz, kid.
(You know, now that I am thinking about it, I have no idea what that show was called in the press release. Or who was creating it…Do you? Did it come out? Is it on Interflix? Tell me in the comments if you know.)
Whether I’ll go back to my script one day is unclear, but I do know that I’m still very drawn to the idea of heirlooms for a few reasons. First of all, and I know that this will sound tangential, I am on a life-long search to identify things that are bisexual. Or things that are the bisexual of their niche. These are things comprised of two things that, when combined, create their very own single thing. My favorite examples are the El Camino car, the mullet haircut, and the hoodie sweater. Gangletown itself. These are all bisexual things. Compound words are another great example. They are the bisexuals of language. Heirloom is a delicious compound word, and therefore heirlooms are inherently bisexual. That is science.
Another reason I’m stuck on heirlooms is that I love things that seem simple at first but become more complex over time. Y’all, heirlooms are sneaky-complicated. At first glance, they seem like items passed down from one to another, but if you start to imagine the actual items and what they could be, the options are literally limitless. Anything could be an heirloom because what gets passed down and why is all in the eye of the beholder. That is thrilling. Imagine the never-ending number of stories that could be attached to the already endless number of items. The possibilities are…double infinity! As it turns out, HEIRLOOMS ARE VERY EXCITING.
I want to know — what do you love most about heirlooms? If you’re a hoarder, the volume of options might really fill your tank. If you’re a nostalgic or a romantic, it’s the stories behind the heirlooms that might fluff your pillows.
No twist, I am a nostalgic and romantic, so it’s definitely all about those stories for me. Give me that juicy juicy history. I want to know who acquired the thing first, what it meant to them, how it got to you, who you’re giving it to when you die. I want the past, present, and future of this thing, and don’t skimp on the details. That’s why I wrote that script, and that’s why I’m writing this.
The script sitting in my drawer is all fiction, but in my process of figuring out all those details, of course, I still had to spend some time looking at how heirlooms are a part of my own life. I have been very fortunate in that most of my family is living. There has not been much opportunity for things to be passed on posthumously. My Mom’s mother passed when I was in third grade, and that is — knock on all of the wood — the only family member I have lost.
That said, there are certainly heirloom pieces I know will come eventually—things like china dinnerware (of course) and jewelry. Furniture from the years my family lived overseas—trinkets from the curio cabinets, each with their own fruitful stories. And there is one piece in particular that, despite my Millenial sensibilities, I definitely want.
My Dad was a casual coin collector for a little while and, when I was little, he would let me sift through his collection. It was just a small batch of various coins, stored in a Crown Royal bag. I liked to take them out and look at them and ask questions. I don’t think that any of them were particularly rare or exciting, so I don’t remember any specific pieces; sorry, coin-nerds. The only piece from his collection that I do remember was one that he didn’t keep in the bag at all but, rather, wore on a chain around his neck—a gold coin.
It was a 1983 Gold Panda 100 Yuan MS coin, a special-edition piece from China. This was a 24kt gold coin about the size of a dime. On one side, there was a panda and on the other a temple. Confirming its origin's history has not yet made its way to the top of my priority list, so I don’t know the nuanced story of why it was created or what it represents. I simply refer to it as the “panda coin.”
How my Dad got the panda coin is also a mystery to me, but I assume it was a low-stakes situation. It seems to be a collector’s piece, so it was probably as simple as that. Based on the shallow Google I just did, some of these coins are valued at around $3,000. Not bad. I also don’t know if the coin had any profound meaning to him. It’s possible, but he’s never been an extremely nostalgic type, so he probably just wore it because it was a nice piece of gold.
All I really know about the panda coin is that it makes me think of my Dad. It’s a joyful thought. And when I think of him, the coin and necklace are always a part of the image.
I’ve always known that I wanted the panda coin. I have many siblings (4 including step), so I brought it up a few years back to stake my claim. We talked about it as something that I would get “one day.” That is a scary phrase to use with one’s parents…one day. We all know what it means, and the hope is that one day doesn’t come for a long, long while. I’m not in any rush for my inheritance.
Not too long after that, I got a box in the mail. It was a care package from my Dad and Stepmom filled to the brim with comforts and surprises. Gum, tic-tacs, vitamins, candy, and one essential item: a super cute stuffed Panda bear. And this was not just any normal stuffed animal. This was a stuffed animal that doubles as a pillow. The brand is called…wait for it…Pillow Pet. Innovation. A little strip can be wrapped around the belly to tighten it into more of an “all fours” toy-like stuffed animal, or it can be released flat to create a soft pillow. It’s like a transformer but super soft and basic. Reader, do you see why this is so exciting? Pillow Pets are also bisexual!
I thought it was a thoughtful and hilarious gift. By this point, I was technically a grown man of 24-years-old, and I was still getting stuffed animals in the mail from my parents. Classic David. But you know what? I loved that panda deeply. I named him “Coin,” and he became the perfect placeholder for the one-day panda coin necklace.
Coin quickly took on the value and importance of his very own. In addition to being a great reminder of my Dad and family who lived so far away, he served as a true comfort-blanket at times of high anxiety or discomfort. The year I got it, I went through a gnarly break-up, and having a good stuffed animal to cry into was crucial.
I turn 33 next month, so the idea of having a stuffed animal remains preposterous, but I don’t give a damn. I still have Coin, and I still love him. I have to be honest and say that I don’t give him the same attention as I once did. He often lays quietly in the closet, waiting for his moment to shine. I’m ashamed to say it, but I even contemplated getting rid of him when we moved apartments. But then I looked into his marble-eyes, and I almost cried. Okay, I actually cried a little. Though a one-time placeholder, Coin has been there through breakups, sicknesses, the 2016 election, and other modern-era nightmares. I couldn’t just toss him out.
This year, my Dad and I were talking, and the panda coin came up again. “Whenever you want it,” he said. He hasn’t been wearing it and figures that if I am going to get it at some point anyway, it might as well be now. He said that if I wanted it, he would send it up. I was a little conflicted. In tradition, an heirloom is passed down after someone dies. When Grandma passes, that’s when someone gets the china dinnerware, not before. Right? But it’s a brave new world, and I have all these thoughts about the new approach to heirlooms, so why not?
I have the panda coin now. I wear it around my neck every day and, in addition to looking very cute on me, I love it because it represents my Dad. He is someone I idolize in a thousand ways, and I love that I don’t have to wait for “one day” to celebrate him with this token. I have the coin pendant, and Scott Kimple is alive and well and living in Palm Bay, Florida.
Getting the panda coin felt right. It felt like a full-circle moment, but because of it, I wondered again whether I needed to Coin the stuffed animal. Was he made redundant? Was I becoming like a “panda” person?
Then, we adopted a dog. She’s a three-ish-year-old Shit Tzu+ named Effie. Potentially the closest I’ll ever get to having a child, but I have definitely not made any plans to bequeath her with my 24kt gold panda coin. What could I possibly give her, my dog-hter, that would make her feel the way I do having my Dad’s necklace?
Coin the stuffed animal. It’s the perfect way to pass down something that has brought me so much comfort. Effie loves him just as much as I do. She snuggles and sleeps with him. She rests her head on his head. She brings him into a whole new world of purpose. Another generation of memories made with an item made valuable for no other reason than that someone cared. I like to imagine that when she snuggles into his softness, she feels the way that I feel when I wear the panda coin around my neck. Proud, connected, and full of love.
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Thanks for sharing this piece. I love it!!