20 Years Later: The Stanley Cup, Family Memories & How Much Life Can Change

This past weekend was one of those weekends that somehow felt like three weekends packed into one.

It started Saturday morning at 3:30 AM. Yes, 3:30.

We got up before dawn to head to South Carolina for our son’s cross country meet. After the meet, instead of going home and collapsing like reasonable people, we drove back, picked up our dogs, loaded everything into the car, and headed three hours to Raleigh.

And that was really when the weekend got started.

My brother-in-law, Mike, works for the Carolina Hurricanes NHL team, and because they won the Stanley Cup, each team member gets the Cup for a day. Sunday was Mike’s day. My parents hosted the Cup at their house that morning and invited friends to come by, see it, and have their pictures taken with it.

Which sounds simple enough until you realize that when my family hosts something, we apparently feed everyone within driving distance.

So Saturday afternoon, I helped my mom make dozens of muffins. Then we made 18 pounds of meatballs. There was BBQ. There was breakfast food. There were cookies. There was enough food that at one point I wondered whether we were hosting a Stanley Cup party or opening a restaurant.

Sunday morning, at least 50 people came through my parents’ house. Thankfully, some of my mom’s friends brought food too, because I am pretty sure we would have run out otherwise.

It was crowded and loud and fun, and there were people everywhere taking pictures with the Cup. But one of the most meaningful parts of the weekend for me was getting to recreate a family photo from 20 years ago.

The last time Mike had a day with the Stanley Cup, our daughter was a baby. And we put her inside it. Yes, actually inside the Stanley Cup. We have this wonderful family photo from that day with our tiny daughter sitting in the Cup. This time, she had to settle for standing in front of it.

A lot has changed in 20 years. Back then, our oldest and middle children were the only grandchildren. Our youngest son hadn’t even been born yet. There were no daughters-in-law. No boyfriends. Several of the children in the new photos weren’t even ideas yet.

This time, when we looked around at everyone gathered together, there were so many more of us. Our family has grown. That was probably the part that hit me the hardest.

You live your life day by day, and the changes usually happen so slowly that you don’t really notice them. Then one day you recreate a photograph from 20 years ago and suddenly there it all is. The years. The children who grew up. The people who joined the family. The people who weren’t there before. The whole story spread out in front of you.

After the morning at my parents’ house, we all headed over to my sister’s. Then they drove the Stanley Cup around town in a golf cart so people could see it. I am not sure there are many weekends in life when you can casually say, “Oh yes, then we drove the Stanley Cup around town in a golf cart,” but this was one of them.

After that, we went to a brewery to set up another party. This one was for around 300 people. My mom had made hundreds of cookies. We brought the 18 pounds of meatballs. There were nachos. There were people everywhere.

And Jerry got to drink beer out of the Stanley Cup. That may have been his personal highlight of the weekend.

We also got to see family we don’t see nearly often enough. One of my sisters came down from New York with her family, and we ran into old high school and college friends we hadn’t seen in years. 

It was exhausting. It was chaotic. And it was wonderful.

Then early Monday morning, we headed home so our daughter could turn around and drive another three hours back to her university. And shortly after that, my body apparently decided it had participated in enough excitement. I came down with a cold.

So this weekend, I am looking forward to something much quieter. But I keep thinking about those two family photographs. The one from 20 years ago and the one from this weekend. 

And I think that may be one of the reasons I have always understood why people become so attached to old dolls. Sometimes we look at an object and other people just see the object. A doll. A toy. A dress. A photograph. A piece of furniture. 

But we see everything attached to it. We see Christmas morning. We see our childhood bedroom. We see our grandmother’s house. We see the person who gave it to us. We remember where we were in life when we first held it. That object becomes a marker in time.

The Stanley Cup obviously isn’t ours to keep, but those photographs are. Twenty years from now, I imagine we will look at this new picture and realize all over again how much has changed.

That is what old dolls can do too. They hold their place in our stories. They remind us of people and moments we might otherwise have forgotten. And that is one of the reasons I have spent so many years helping people repair, preserve, and care for them.

Sometimes restoring a doll isn’t really about fixing a doll at all. It is about preserving a little piece of someone’s history. If you have a doll tucked away that you have been meaning to repair, restore, restring, or simply learn more about, you can browse my doll repair books, guides, supplies, and vintage doll listings in my shops.

Because sometimes the things we keep become the things that help us remember just how much life has happened around them.

And after this weekend, I’m feeling that more than ever.