Thankful Thursday: The Stories They Hold

 

I happened upon a Facebook post written by someone named Skye Hitchcock, and it said this:

                Someone told me that when their grandma leaves this earth, they want her things to come to me, because they know I’d cherish them and take care of them.

                And honestly…I can’t think of a higher compliment than that.

                It isn’t about owning things. It’s about honoring what they meant to someone. The dishes that held decades of family dinners. The quilts that kept people warm through hard winters. The photo frames that held faces and stories and whole lifetimes.

                I wish I could save every grandma’s home. Every drawer. Every box in the attic. Every little piece of life that meant everything to someone.

                It made me think about the pieces scattered around this home that belonged to our grandmothers – and mothers.

                We have the Hoosier Cabinet that sat in my Grandma Freelan’s house for years. It was in quite a state of disrepair when she died, but Mom loved it, so Dad hired Grandma’s neighbor to refinish it. It sat in the same spot in Mom and Dad’s house for close to thirty years before I asked if we could have it here at the lake. Mom was happy to have it stay in the family, and I am happy to have this piece of my history as part of our story.

                I have Grandma Kesot’s wooden rolling pin. I can only imagine how many hundreds of pie crusts and noodles it rolled over the years. I am not good at making either of those things, but I do crush a mean graham cracker with it! I think of her every time I reach into the white pitcher that holds all the wooden utensils, including that rolling pin.

                We have the wooden glider that lived in Allen and Nita’s cabin. I rocked in it the last time we went to the cabin to help Allen sort through things…just a couple of weeks before he died. We didn’t have room for much in our house, but I did want that so we could rock babies when they came to visit, and I do love having it here by our fireplace.

                I inherited the little glass baking dish nestled in a wooden basket that Grandma used to serve macaroni and cheese at every family gathering. The first year I hosted Thanksgiving (in my early twenties) I cooked her recipe in her kitchen and served it in her dining room in her dish. What a sweet memory!

                One of my favorite story-laden pieces is the kitchen island that Mom’s friend customized for her years ago. She didn’t want it sold with the house, so it came to live here when they went to Swiss Village. We use it all day every day and it makes me so happy that we have it here in our home.

                I love these pieces, but what I love most is what they represent…who they represent. Indeed it is an honor to be a keeper of the stories. Preserver of the memories.

                Maybe it’s the same for you?