When Nina was a little girl, her father, who collected everything he thought might be valuable, encouraged her to start a collection of her own. Their house was crammed with musical instruments, old coins, stamps, badges, thousands of small liquor bottles, and all kinds of knick-knacks. The collections had grown so big over the years that they had to be moved into a warehouse, where her father spent all of his spare time sorting his stamps or just looking at his objects and admiring them. The more Nina’s father tried to infect her with his passion, the bigger her resistance to collecting became.
He even created an album with stamps from all over the world and gave it to her for her ninth birthday. Except for her fascination with the number of countries the stamps came from, Nina had no desire to ever open the album. He dragged her to various collectors’ conventions, insisting it was a great way to learn about the world, but she showed no interest in socializing with inanimate objects. All the collectors talked about were their collections. They only came alive describing them and exchanging prices. All Nina wanted was to hear them talk about themselves — their dreams and their days, their loves and their fears.
And that’s how Nina’s special collection started.
She embarked on a passionate pursuit of interesting people. Over the years, her collection grew, as did a shared love. When Nina would meet people she was not certain about, she ’d ask them about their passions. If they started describing their albums and complaining about a missing stamp, she would say, “It was nice to meet you,” and continue her search. If their eyes lit up as they launched into an enthusiastic portrayal of the people they loved, she would ask, “Would you like to be my friend?” And the journey of shared love, of joy and sorrow, would begin. Sometimes she would lose her gems along the way or leave them behind if she walked too fast, but she would often find them again.
Nina had no idea that this moving and laughing collection would be her only wealth and the only inheritance she could offer her children.
But I am jumping ahead and there has to be some order to the story.