You always think you have tomorrow

You always think you have tomorrow

So I overheard a conversation the other day about "daft" jewellery with fingerprints on it.  One Mum said "as if I've got time to mess around trying to grab their fingerprints, my Mum probably won't appreciate it anyway!"  

I laughed at first at the thought of a mum trying to hold a child down to get their fingerprints, or losing her sh*t when the child smudges it and it's not quite so perfect as she'd planned or imagined - both scenarios I'm familiar with!

I remembered the conversation later in the car as my mind wandered whilst my three kids were scrapping and arguing in the back, and suddenly felt quite sorry for her. 

It doesn't seem two minutes since my eldest Zac started school and now in just 4 weeks, he'll be leaving that school ready to start high school in September.  Time does fly.  As a busy Mum you feel like days drag yet you look back and can scarcely remember the weeks and months that have passed in a flash.  It struck me that I don't have the kid fingerprints anywhere and very soon, Zac's fingerprint will be that of a young man.  Not my boy, my baby, my first born little fella! 

I have handprints of all three when they were babies and I instantly felt thankful that I had taken the time to do them.  I also have their footprints that I took to create a gift for the twins leaving nursery.  As well as a cute keepsake for both nursery and our family, it was also a very useful exercise as this was how we discovered Zac had a verruca lol! ("what's that hole on Zac's heel?")

But thinking about all this was a reminder to do fingerprints now, this weekend, not to leave it, but to make time and capture these precious moments in time and not put it off. 

I'd love to have fingerprint, handprint or footprint of my Granma.  I have her signature and I love to look at it.  It's in card that stays on my desk all the time.  It's something she created, she crafted, her personal mark.  But how wonderful would it be to be able to see a print of a part of her?  To see her unique size, shape, lifelines?  We just don't take enough time to invest in our future feelings for when our today's become tomorrows.  (bit deep that wasn't it?!)  but it's true!

Sometimes when I explain what our business is all about, I find myself talking about gifts that preserve or create a memory from a moment or occasion, but what about those that create a memory, maybe I should focus on those more?  The fingerprint jewellery, the handprint kits, the fingerprint trees, the hand and feet moulding sets...there's so many ways we can stop, seal the moment and cherish the memory.

The sad thing is, today's become yesterdays too quickly and yes, actually it does take a bit of effort to create keepsakes sometimes.  If I do it now for Zac aged 11, it will be lovely to look back on in 10 years time at his 21st.  If I put it off, and off and off, he'll be 12, 14 and before you know it an adult and that keepsake opportunity is lost.  And the fact is that tomorrow's aren't guaranteed for any of us.  That's why we need to find time to "mess about doing these things".  Because the raw truth is, if tomorrow didn't come for one of us, the rest of us would cling to and need these types of keepsakes to give us comfort and make us feel close again. 

That is why I always love this job, our gifts and the importance they mean to each of our customers.  

 

 

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