It's Monday, the 16th of November, and a great day to be alive in. No matter what the troubles of this world might be, why not rejoice and give thanks for what we do have?
My grandmother's birthday will be this week and although she has been gone now for a long time, I still remember her special day each and every November 19th. She lived into the winter of what would have been her 106th year. When she passed away, it was a sad time for us. Yet even in it all, we were grateful that we got to keep her here for so very long.
Catherine Brown was a very thrifty woman who early on figured out how to make things stretch. She knew how to "make do" with whatever she had. Towards the last few years before she had to go into longterm nursing home care, I remember that she had this blue and white striped apron. Every time I would go to visit her she would be wearing it. It was a very used one, in fact it had gotten to the point of being pretty threadbare throughout. She could have easily thrown it away. There were plenty of others in her closet but she chose to wear it until she no longer could. Even though I try to be, I'm not quite as thrifty as my grandmother was. I still remember her in that respect with much admiration that she could be.
I learned so many lessons of life from her and those are lessons that I will carry in my heart forever. I'm so glad that she taught her daughter (my mother) the value of hard work. In turn, my mother taught the very same lesson to me. I believe it's one of the greatest of gifts that a person can be given and certainly one that lasts a lifetime. Knowing how to work hard has saved me from a lot of problems in years gone by and continues to do so this very day. Thanks to those two women, I have made it so far and will continue to make it in the weeks and months that lie ahead!
Over the nearly past 4 decades of being a teacher I have been able to tell about my grandmother to many school children. They have been amazed about how long she lived and also intrigued by a special "gift" that she left to me. It's a treasure that now is 55 years old and still going strong.
If by chance you have never seen a real Easter egg that is nearly 6 decades old, well you are seeing one now. Two tiny little girls were having fun at their grandmother's house back in Halstead, Kansas one Easter weekend. One of those little girls was me and the other was my younger sister, Cindy. We colored a couple of dozen eggs that Saturday afternoon in 1960, and hid them all through the house. It was fun to search for them and bring them back to our grandmother who gathered them up in the basket. We came up one short at the end and after searching for what seemed forever (probably in reality it was about 5 minutes in all), we gave up. Later in the week as she was doing her housework, Grandmother Brown found it. She promptly put it in the little tiny basket shown above and kept it in one of the built in cabinets of the living room.
And that is where it stayed for a long, long, long time.
When she passed away in 1997, I brought it home with me and it has stayed tucked away in that little basket ever since. It surely seems strange to have something like that, a gift that was placed into that very small container by my own grandmother's hands. Every year I have taken the egg to school and showed it to whatever class of children I might have had. They all are amazed that it survived this long and the questions they ask me about it always bring a smile to my face.
"Could you ever eat it?"
"Doesn't it stink?"
"What does it look like inside?"
"How long are you going to keep that thing?"And my answers are always the same..... no, no, I don't know, forever.
I never knew my grandfathers on either side of the family but I knew my grandmothers very well. They were sweet and kind women who loved their grandchildren with all of their hearts. I have nothing but fond memories of them both. They loved me and I loved them.
I often wonder what people will remember about me when I am gone from this earth. Perhaps they will recall the "little" things, like a basket with an Easter egg inside. Whatever it is they store up in their own hearts, I hope always that it will be something good and kind.
Just like my grandmother.
The little girl that I used to be~
Catherine Brown and Bessie Scott called me their "granddaughter", Peggy Ann.
No comments:
Post a Comment