I’ve always admired them and they greet us in the guest room every time we visit. But they’ve just…always been there. I’d never asked about them. I knew nothing about them.

So one day I finally asked:
Mom, what’s the story behind those bird pictures?

She told me she had fallen in love with them after finding them tucked inside the pages of a magazine at my Grandma Atla’s house. My grandma told her to keep them, and she did, caring for them for over 50 years, reframing them with museum glass, and carrying them from home to home.

I realized we didn’t have many stories from Grandma Atla. So discovering these illustrations felt like a chance to give them a place in our family’s story going forward.

After a little research, we discovered the illustrations were by John Gould. Gould helped identify species in the collection Charles Darwin donated to the Zoological Society of London in 1837. He was born in Lyme Regis, the same coastal town my family once visited to hunt for marine fossils (another story for later).

And because curiosity snowballed, I tracked down two copies of the full set of illustrations in the 492-page book, John Gould's Hummingbirds. I gave one to my mom and mine sits in my living room. Every time I see it, I think of my mom, my grandmother, and even our fossil trip…all separate memories woven together by a pair of hummingbird prints.[PHOTOS]

Sometimes, the objects that spark memories aren’t even ours. They’re the things we grew up seeing, touching, admiring from across the room. A little knowledge can tether them to us in ways that preserve memory, meaning, and connection.

So as you gather with family and friends this holiday season, consider asking the people you love about the things they’ve kept.

Because the stories we don’t ask for? They disappear quietly. Like birds in flight.