Sentimentality: The difference in people

The other day someone told me that when you get to a certain (older) age, sentiment is no longer an important part of life.  I had to disagree because if getting older tells us that, then I will never get older.  Feeling sentimental about people, places, things and smells, memories and the like is one of the things that surge me ahead some days.  I've often been told I wear rose-colored glasses but if giving up sentimentality is a given to aging, then I will not grow old thank you very much.

I am writing about this personal issue because it made me realize (again) how very different people are in life now and far into the past.  Were our ancestors sentimental?  How could they be when they had to leave everything behind to make a march toward a ship they'd never seen, brave the elements and the watery road to Hawaii with bags and a family trunk filled with meager possessions?  How could they be sentimental, I wonder?  Did they give it up as they aged?  Could they actually ever truly hold on to sentimental things they'd treasured in their homeland?  Did they have anything to treasure at all?  Was the trip abroad and moving on to America the actual treasure?

One of the Gonzales (nee Silvan) descendants has banked memories she isn't even aware of until her nieces and others probe her thoughts through questions, suggestions and oral memories.  She has saved many pieces of her parent's past, as I am prone to do.  I believe this lady will never give up sentimental urgings in exchange for age.  Me?  Never in a million years.

As I prepare for my trip to Spain, I ponder what was left behind in Fuentesauco and the three other villages of our past.  Will I walk down the same streets my abuelita walked on during her short life there in the little village that birthed her father, aunts and uncles?  Will I look across the valley and view the panorama she saw as a child and thought about sometimes when she became an adult?  Will I sift my toes through the dirt and possibly bring some home with me??  Sentimental?  Smiling here.  Of course.