3 Things I’d Save In A House Fire

1. Bobo & The Finger Blanket

Neither of these items have any monetary value. They wouldn’t warrant a claim to the insurance company. However, my son would definitely know they were gone. It would break his heart to lose either of these two keepsakes.

Bobo is a small sock monkey my dad bought for my son when he was four months old. Despite the addition of hundreds more stuffed animals, some of them also sock monkeys, Bobo holds a special place in my son’s heart. If I looked hard enough, I could find another sock monkey that looks just like Bobo. In fact, we have a Bobo understudy just in case. But there’s a difference between Bobo and his understudy. Bobo has a small stain above his nose where my son kissed him.  He had just tried his first food, avocados, and they were smeared all over his face. The avocado stain above Bobo’s nose is just as irreplaceable as Bobo, so I’d save him.

The Finger Blanket is a small knitted blanket that my mother made for my son before he was born.  We wrapped him in it while he was still in the hospital. He carefully pushed his fingers and toes through the holes in the knitting.  It comforted him while he was being treated for jaundice and many times since.  He loves that little blanket. My mom could probably make another, but it wouldn’t be quite the same.

2. My Nanny’s Necklace

I don’t usually wear gold. I much prefer silver or pearls when I decide to wear jewelry at all. I have one gold necklace. I wear it on very special occasions. I wore it at my high school and college graduation. I wore it on my wedding day.  It’s a dainty gold chain with three small gold balls and two small black balls threaded through the chain.  It was my grandmother’s necklace, my beloved “Nanny.”  We were incredibly close. She lost her battle with cancer when I was just a girl.  Since then I have carried her necklace with me on special occasions as a way of remembering, of keeping her near.

Most of the jewelry was divided among my mom and my aunt, but this necklace fell to me. It’s mine because of a small dent in one of the gold balls. The dent is from my first baby tooth as I bit down on the soft gold while Nanny wore the necklace.  I’m sure the dent decreases the value to any jeweler, but it only adds value to me. If the house were on fire, I couldn’t bear to leave it behind.

3. The Laptop

Maybe I’m not the only one that would save the laptop.  There are lots of great reasons that don’t involve my addiction to Facebook or Pinterest. Digital copies of many of our important documents are saved to our laptop. It’s also where we save the thousands of photos of our family. There’s no way to replace those precious memories if anything should happen to them. Everything is backed up to the external hard drive, so I guess I’d have to pocket that as well. In my mind, it’s totally worth it.

What would you save in a fire? Would it be the obvious? I’m pretty sure my coupon crazy sister would be saving her coupons. I think my mom would grab her knitting bag. What would you save?

 Written by: Sara Parise