My Family Culture - An Exercise

Imagine...

A major catastrophe devastates your country and the emergency government decides that all survivors must be evacuated to other countries.  Survivors have no say in where they are relocated to and their stay there may be permanent.  You and your immediate family are being evacuated to a country in which the culture is completely different from yours.  You make take one change of clothes and 3 small items with you.  You decide to take three items that you hold dear and that represent your family culture.

I don't know about you, but I immediately have anxiety just thinking about choosing just three items!  The first thought I had was that I would take my photo albums and scrapbooks.  But, they do not fit as one item and there are several of them.  However, my laptop and my phone hold thousands of pictures of my family.  Photos hold so many memories of my family and tell so many stories that I can't imagine a better way to take my cultuire and history with me.

The next item I think I would take with me is our family Bible.  I guess that sounds cliche, but I do have the names and dates of every event written in it and it holds important papers and clippings.  It would help carry on the history of my family as we journeyed to our new country.

The third item I would take is my jewelry box.  Now, anyone that knows me knows I wear my wedding rings, my Pandora bracelets, and maybe a pair of earrings.  However, my jewlery box holds some of my grandmother's jewelry that was passed down to me, jewelry that was given to me by family members over the years, and other small mementos.

But, the exercise is not finished!  Now, imagine that when you arrive in your new country you are told that you may only keep one of the three items you brought with you!  What?!?!?  Are you kidding me?  Ugh!  I guess I would choose to keep my laptop or phone (notice I still haven't fully committed to which one of those I would choose!).

There are a few things this exercise brought to mind.  First, I have so many things that narrowing them down to three or even one seems nearly impossible.  Second, I have been through the devastation of losing family photos that can never be replaced and I would never want to go through that again!  In deciding to take my laptop or phone, I realized that I may start scanning several older family pictures in order to have them saved digitally.  In addition, since I would have had to give up my family Bible, I would also scan the documents and written pages into a digital file.  Finally, I may just shove as much of the jewelry and momentos from my box as I can into my pockets!