As a new year begins, many people caring for someone they love are not wishing for more time, more energy, or better organization. They are wishing for connection.
Caregiving can quietly change the relationship at its core. The person who once stood beside you now relies on you. The quick mind that shaped conversations may be slowing. The easy back-and-forth — the shared jokes, the debates, the verbal intimacy — may no longer be available in the same way.
Over time, a distance can form, even in the presence of great love.
One of the hardest parts is that caregivers are often no longer fully seen or heard within the relationship itself. You may still be deeply known by the person you are caring for — and yet no longer recognized in the ways that once sustained you.
Finding new ways to connect matters.
Working with keepsakes offers one such way.
A keepsake creates a shared point of attention — something neither person has to manage, fix, or perform around. An object can hold the center of the moment, allowing both people to meet there without pressure to remember, explain, or make sense.
Working with keepsakes doesn’t require preparation, skill, or a plan.
It begins by choosing one object that feels familiar or meaningful — not because it holds an important story, but because it feels safe to hold or look at together. A photograph, a piece of jewelry, a small dish, or an everyday object that has been part of shared life is often enough.
The object becomes the shared focus.
Rather than asking someone to recall details or explain the past, you simply sit with the object and allow it to set the pace. There is no right outcome. The goal is not accuracy.
The goal is presence and connection.
You might hold the object together.
You might place it between you.
You might simply notice it side by side.
From there, a few gentle invitations can help open connection — without demanding memory or performance:
- “What do you notice as you look at this?”
- “What do you like about it?”
- “What feeling comes up when you hold this?”
- “Does this remind you of something — even a little?”
- “What would you like me to know about this?”
Silence is not a problem.
Fragmented thoughts are not a problem.
Changing the subject is not a problem.
Sometimes a story emerges.
Sometimes a feeling does.
Sometimes nothing needs to be said at all.
What matters is that you are meeting each other in the same moment, around the same thing.
Keepsakes that represent shared times — moments of faith, resilience, family, joy, or simply life lived side by side — often allow the heart to lead where the mind no longer can. When the heart guides the remembering, connection can re-emerge without effort or explanation.
If this way of connecting speaks to you, you’re warmly invited to join the January Journaling Circle, where we’ll explore this practice more deeply, together.