My parents come from humble beginnings. Both children of coal miners on Canada's Atlantic coast, they grew up with very few material possessions and they carried nothing forward into their adult lives from their family's past. There was simply nothing to pass forward, except photos and stories. It certainly hasn't detracted from my life that I don't have a tangible item to connect me to relatives, but I always loved the notion of the girl wearing her mom's wedding dress or a boy proposing with …
