Things My Mother Gave Me

By Jacey Eckhart

The hardest category for my mother when she was mapping her kitchen was the cabinet of Things My Mother Gave Me. My grandma was one of those redheaded creatures God made to remind us that love is all that matters. 

Some of Grandma’s things made the cut. My mom uses them all the time. Some of her things were packed away without regret. One set of dusty stemware sat on Mom’s dining room table for a long time. I would not let her pack them until she had a place on her map indicating where they would go in the new house.

Finally, Mom sat down at the table in front of the stemware. “Let me tell you about those glasses,” she said. She told me how my grandma would get out these glasses she wanted to make a fancy dessert, serving her special chocolate sauce made from scratch over vanilla ice cream in these glasses for her husband and eight children.

In my mom’s face, I could see housewifely pride of a woman who owned few nice things and saved them for best and a daughter who witnessed her efforts to create a moment. No wonder they were hard to let go. 

Still, Mom did not pack up the glasses. They sat in dusty splendor on the table for the rest of the week. I wondered what she would do. Sometimes things hold a spirit forever and sometimes they hold only a memory that needs to be felt one more time.

Mom called me a few days later. “I washed all the glasses and packed them up. The Senior Center is having a sale, and I could see some young person needing these glasses.”

Me too, Mom. Me too.