Thanks all.
Yeah, there's some disconnect between me and his wife especially(not my mother, they divorced when I was like...5), about...well, about mementos. Things like stuff I sent him when I was a kid that were super important to him...don't mean anything to me. I was too young to remember it now. And even if I did, I'm not one to get hung up on physical mementos to remind me of a person. But I guess my lack of enthusiasm about that stuff makes it seem like I don't care or something. Which isn't true at all.
I could pretend it's important to me, but...that's not how I do things. And you know, that's not how my dad did things either. And there are things that are important to me. His cookbook, the one he wrote, filled with recipes of his own creation and ones he gathered from years of travelling and trading recipes with fantastic cooks? That matters. I will think of him when I cook those meals, or when I share the book with others(which is something he wanted people to do). If the expense of getting them out to CA isn't too much, his Forgotten Realms book collection. It's an interest we actually shared, a world and characters we both care about.
But a handprint I sent him when I was 6? Some old school pictures of myself? They were important to him, but they mean nothing to me. And someone else's emotional attachment to a thing alone doesn't spark some kind of connection with me unless I have another reason to care about it too. It's the common threads that matter to me. He cooked, I cook, when I use his cookbook it means something. He read, I read, when I read one of the books he's had for years and loved it means something.
I wanted to have that handprint(the thing she was most upset I didn't want) to my mother instead. I know she's the one who actually framed it and put the little poem on the paper and sent it to him. To her, that would be a keepsake of my childhood AND a memento of my father. To me...it's a piece of paper. She about flipped her lid(note: I did not ask HER to send that. I asked my aunt who is here, and she's the one who let it slip to my dad's widow that I was wanting that sent to my mother).
I tried to explain my reasoning here, which...well, my aunt understood thankfully. But my stepmother is the grieving widow right now, and me not feeling the way she expected and wanted me to feel was...very clearly hurtful to her. Which I don't want to or mean to be. But I'm not going to lie about my feelings either.
Hopefully this makes some kind of sense. I'm not sure if I'm actually clearheaded right now or just think that I am. Didn't sleep well last night for obvious reasons.
