If I had my life to live over,
I would start barefoot earlier in the spring
and stay that way later in the fall.
I would go to more dances.
I would ride more merry-go-rounds.
I would pick more daisies. Nadine Stair, 85 years old.
When I was a child we used thin scratchy ‘everyday’ towels. Mum saved the ‘good towels’ for special occasions when we had visitors. We rarely saw these ‘good towels’. They were thick, colourful and felt so soft – although I only touched them once. I wiped my hands on a ‘good towel’ and was berated by Mum so severely that I knew never to touch one again. I still remember how lovely it felt – so soft and fluffy. But I understood the rules of our home from that day forward. You never use a good towel. They were for visitors.
It was the same with the crystal wine glasses that sat alone in our display cabinet month after month, year after year. Unlike the towels, they didn’t even come out for visitors. We used the ‘second best’ wine glasses for visitors, but never the ‘best’. They were too special.
Years went by and finally the sad day came when Mum moved into a nursing home. We had a week of cleaning out our family home, which was one of the hardest weeks I’ve faced.
When we went through the linen cupboard we found the ‘good towels’, still in perfect condition, and some still with their tags on. The ‘everyday towels’ were there too, threadbare and scratchy as they had always been, and in regular use right up to the bitter end. We divided the ‘good towels’ between us.
At the back of the linen cupboard I also found the special chocolate biscuits that Mum hid away. They were way past their use-by date and we had to throw them away.
I felt guilty touching the crystal glasses. It was like removing a rare museum piece from its locked case to be contaminated by the world. They were exquisite glasses, holding memories and dreams which were now lost in time.
When I came home I sorted through the piles of linen, glassware and casserole dishes I had inherited. Each are precious items, with my childhood memories etched into their fibres and colours.
Again the little girl, I ran my fingers over the soft fluffy towels and held my breath awaiting the tirade. But of course it didn’t come.
I sighed deeply and made a decision. Grabbing the fluffiest of the towels, I placed them in our bathroom, ready to use. I took a crystal glass and poured a glass of chilled white wine, and lifted it to my lips. The glass was so heavy and it sparkled under the down light. The wine tasted heavenly.
I reflected on the precious objects we had had to sell that week at a garage sale – parts of our lives spread across the lawn for heartless strangers to pick over. We took what we could, but there was no space in our homes for everything. We sold precious memories for a few gold coins.
Mum had always saved for a rainy day, and delayed gratification, but she waited too long. I gulped down the rest of the wine from the heavy crystal glass, and headed off for a shower, anticipating the softness of my fluffy towel. When the day comes to leave my home my towels will be well-used, and my wine glasses will be scratched and chipped from too many evenings with friends, our home echoing with laughter.
That evening I fell asleep throwing my dreams into an imaginary wishing basket, determined to retrieve them all before they are withered by dust and time. Today I am alive. Tomorrow may never come.
James 4:14
Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.
Great Kerry, I so relate to your thoughts and what it felt like to have to sell all those wonderful memories.
My Grandfather said the other day that he thought he would have more time and more warning when his time was coming. Despite the fact that he is 88! I think he feels he is as only as old as he recently felt and that he’d felt quite fine. I think he is so blessed to have lived this long and he has had for the most part a great life. But we never know the time and the place, this we know as we experience when someone young is taken from us. Live life to the full I say, it is so precious. The days can turn around so quickly. I always think of the verse “this is the day the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it” Each day is a gift, isn’t it!
Jodie x
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Yes indeed Jodie – each day is a gift – and sadly most of us don’t see it when our time is coming. Great incentive to live each day to the full, and never to wait too long to say and do what is really important.
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I so enjoyed this post–I grew up in a household just like that. The towels, the food too good to eat, the glasses–how that brings back memories! The amazing pancake mix that no one ever qualified to eat eventually went to the weevils. I repainted the bathroom blue and gave away the untouchable pink towels. And I use the no-no glasses, with great glee!
The tradition that I’ve enjoyed eliminating here is that, now that I’ve inherited the fine china, children are not banished to the living room for holiday dinners on everyday dishes. They sit at the main table and use the same china that everyone else does, and I’ve found that they notice this and feel trusted and treated like adults, and behave accordingly. I feel strongly about this, because I found that it had repercussions well into my adulthood. When I grew up, I didn’t know my relatives, as I’d been allowed little or no contact with them. It created such a gap that I didn’t feel comfortable for the most part calling them up and suggesting visits. It’s too late now; they’re gone. It’s sad, and it’s all because of this outdated notion that children are to be treated like second-class citizens.
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Hi Tracy – That’s so true about ‘the outdated notion that children are to be treated like second-class citizens’. I too found that this attitude had repercussions well into my adult life & I also love to include my children in our dinner parties and holidays with friends. I love your description – ‘the no-no glasses’. I hope you don’t mind, but I think I’m going to borrow that expression the next time I use them! Thanks for reading! 🙂
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I believe that it must have been a generational imperative as it was also the same in my family home. Definately not now. Life is definately too short and we can’t take these ‘precious’ material items with us.
There’s been many a broken glass, and good towels that are now working their way to threadbare – however I see those things as having worn or broken as meals and drinks have been shared and memories created with friends and family.
Although those material things will pass, the memories shall endure through this life time and into the heavenly realms…
I do wonder though what it was in the generation before us, and possibly the generation preceding them which bred this need to keep the precious things ‘just in case’?
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Yes, I’ve probably been responsible for breaking a few of those special glasses at your place & creating happy memories!! I know my parents were deeply affected by The Depression and I think some of the ‘saving for a rainy day’ lifestyle developed from that. However, I wonder why it never changed when life got easier. Just shows how deeply entrenched these attitudes can be, and how important it is to have times when we honestly look at our lives and ask ourselves why we are doing what we are doing.
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Nice site!
I totaly agree with you. Go on with this blog, read every post.
Best regards
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