I love to wear brooches (pins) with my pearls. I particularly love the vintage marquisette style and was overjoyed when my sister reportted that she had discovered a hidden trove of them in Mother Flamingo Dancer’s bedroom. They are inexpensive costume jewellery, but a joy to me.
We went to collect some furniture and I was given a box containing the jewellery and a few other bits and pieces. Daughter1 had borrowed the pendant that Mother Flamingo Dancer wore on her wedding day, a gift from her groom (Father Flamingo Dancer, naturally) to wear on her own wedding day, and it was in amongst the pieces so I opened the box when I got home to give the pendant to D1 as her treasure to keep.
We found a few odd things, including:
I am not sure if they are an old pair of mother’s, or in fact Dad’s teeth!
When Dad died, it unfolded that his teeth did not arrive with him at the funeral home and so Dad was buried without teeth. We didn’t think he would be needing them. A couple of months later Mum received a package from the hospital – Dad’s teeth! We shall have to ask if they are her spares, if not, even if they were Dad’s they are going in the bin. Somethings are just not to be kept.
Though it is tempting to keep them in my bedside table along with the false eyes. It might be the start of a very interesting heirloom collection -. false family body parts.
I hope your father isn’t in the afterlife gumming his food.
I often wonder that! Maybe we should have placed a food blender in with him!
So, the question is, what does one do with a spare set of teeth?
There are places that collect eye glasses for overseas charity, I wonder if there is a denture charity?
Agh. Some mementos are not worth keeping, in my humble view. My father has a couple of pairs of false teeth sitting in his bathroom. Being a hoarder, he can’t bear to throw the old ones away, even if they no longer fit him. Seeing them sitting in this ancient glass of water gives me the creeps, however. They’re so realistic, it’s as if Dad had actually yanked a set of teeth out of his mouth.
The other hot potato we have is the brass cross from Dad’s coffin. We thought it would have been buried with him, but they took it off and gave it to Mum, and now no one in the family wants it. If Mum had died we could have placed it in the coffin with her, but as she is well and truly still breathing that is not short term option. We are all avoiding the problem and it still sits in Mum’s house but they are almost at the end of the clearing and so we will have to face the issue soon.
Oh dear! Please write a post about that when you do figure out what to do with it. My husband had a cross hanging in his room when he died, and the nursing staff gave it to me along with his other belongings. I had no idea what to do with it, and our children didn’t want it. Tossing it in the trash seemed sacrilegious, as did placing it out in our yard sale. When I sold our old house, I gently placed it in a box of things going to Goodwill. Maybe someone with more imagination or piety will give it a good home.
Hide it in the attic/wall for some future homeowner to find!
Now there is an idea – we could put both up through the manhole in the ceiling and wait for the fun!
False eyes?
I have an artificial right eye as a result of a tumour. For details read my Memoir chapters. A goddess must have some imperfection so that the common people don’t lynch her.
or interesting brooches.
i bet you could sell them on etsy as “jewelry supplies”
I was curious, so I looked … and the best answer I found on “what to do with used dentures” is to see if a dental school or art school wants them.
You like brooches? Make one out of the teeth!
My goodness – spare choppers! I don’t think I’d want either spare eyes or spare teeth around.