Meaningless objects

I find it interesting how we can attach so much emotional and sentimental value to otherwise meaningless objects. Simple, easily replaced items that could be misplaced, tossed out, traded in for something bigger, better and shinier. Yet these things are so steeped in bonding ties, we could never imagine such a thing happening to it.

My younger sister was started some math class and needed a calculator. I had a simple 4 function one that I didn't use any more. So I let it her have it. There was nothing impressive about it. I had bought it from a drug store that was next door to the grocery. I really had no need for it, since I using a much more expensive TI calculator at the time. I thought nothing of giving it away to her. After a time, I had forgotten the thing even existed.

Several years passed. I was in college and my sister was in high school. I was home on break when my sister told us that someone had taken her calculator. It was very obvious that she was upset, to the point of tears, that her calculator was gone. I figured that she must have had one of those expensive ones now, like I had. I would have been upset too. But no, she was talking about that drugstore calculator that I had given her.

"I don't understand," I remember saying to my mother later that evening, "That cheap thing? We can get her a new one if that is all she wants."

My mother simply shook her head at me.

"She's upset because the calculator was yours."

"Then I'll tell her that it is no big deal. She doesn't have to cry because someone stole something that used to belong to me. It's not like I wanted it back."

Sometimes I am amazed at how thick I am.

"No, that's not it. She had something that belonged to you. That made it important. She carried around her big sister's calculator. Now someone has taken it."

I assume that my sister got a new calculator, a much fancier one, after a while. My old one never turned up. We never found out who took it or why. It was just one of those things that happened. For me, it was something so simplistic, but for my sister it represented something more. Something important. Something that was upsetting when it was taken. And I am almost certain that whoever took it had no idea how much value they held in their hands.