Silver, Memory, and Choosing to Live Well

Tonight, I cleaned my silverware.

It has been sitting quietly in a drawer for years—not because it didn’t matter, but perhaps because it mattered too much. As I polished each piece, I realized I wasn’t really cleaning silver at all. I was touching memory. Love. History.

My great aunt Mitzi lived in Germany. She was not a wealthy woman, but she carried herself with modesty and refinement. After my father died when I was seven, she sent me a Christmas parcel every year. Inside, without fail, was one place setting of silverware. One piece at a time. Year after year. Until I had ten.

At the time, I thought it was old-fashioned. Too much work. Silver requires care, attention, presence. For years, I told myself it was impractical—out of date for modern life.

Yet I never gave it away.

Somewhere deep inside, I knew it was special. I knew it was love.
It's a tiny elegant secret about living well that turn ordinary moments into something worth savouring.

As fate would have it, she raised my father until he was six years old. A long story—one filled with tenderness and complexity. And somehow, through those yearly parcels, I felt her love cross oceans and time. Quiet. Steady. Intentional.

Tonight, I made a choice.

I am no longer saving the silver for “someday.” I am honouring it. I plan to use it every Sunday at supper—Scottie and I at the table—and at gatherings with family and friends. Not because it’s fancy, but because it carries meaning. Because it represents care, refinement, and presence.

There is a difference between plastic cutlery and silver. Between paper towel napkins and cloth napkins.
And there is also a difference between postponing worthiness and claiming it.

For so long, many of us were taught to save the good things—for special occasions, important guests, a future version of ourselves who somehow deserved them more. But life is always a little messy. And love—the kind that arrived wrapped in care, year after year—was never meant to be hidden away.

Using the silver isn’t about nostalgia.
It’s about permission.

Permission to live with intention even when no one is watching.
Permission to honour the women who loved us into being.
Permission to stop waiting until we feel “enough” to deserve what was already given.

Every Sunday, when we sit down together, the silver will quietly remind me:

This moment matters.
This life matters.
I matter.

And perhaps that is the real inheritance—not the silver itself, but the message it carried all along.

 Copyright 2025: Helene Oseen