This week marks the 3 rd year and 1st year anniversary of my Grandma and Greg’s Grandma (GG) moving to heaven. While we all commemorated these days with food, flowers, and a few laughs in memory of two very funny and special ladies, I held my own special ceremony with Sara. I gave Sara her first musical jewelry box, which had been my Grandma’s. I don’t know why we are so attached to these boxes as women, but can’t we all recall receiving that first pink box with the pop-up ballerina that played Musicbox Dancer, over and over, so many times that I can still hear it in my head as if it were yesterday?
When we went through Grandma’s jewelry, no one wanted her “costume” pieces or her motley collection of jewelry boxes, some purchased and some probably “free with purchase” at the JC Penney makeup counter. But I did. The Grandma stash has been stored on a hidden shelf in the back of my closet, just waiting patiently for my girls to get old enough to play with the memories of my childhood. Someday, I will have a place to store it all together: GG’s tiny silver dance shoes with matching ribbon, Grandma’s bright yellow sunflower pin, GG’s white summer purse, Grandma’s bangle bracelets. For now, it’s spread out, pulled out bits at a time by the girls during play, to remind me of women I love so dearly (present tense please, for they are with me throughout my day, whispering in my ear, so to speak). Reminding me to stay present in the moment, to be in love with the now, to worry less and believe more. And when I need a break, sit for a bit and have a little pasta and pie.
Sara wanted the forbidden blue box instead: Mommy’s grown up girl music box. If you recall, the box that Sara climbed to get right after Kelly was born, knocking a gigantic dresser on top of herself, and thanks to our bed catching the corner of it, saved her from serious harm. This box was a gift from my Mother, one I received in my 20’s, and it is a box I treasure very much. I told Sara when she gets big enough, I’ll buy her a similar treasure box. To which she replied, “YES, and when I’m that BIG I can drive to the ZOO all by myself.” With a look of, “So there MOM. DRIVE. BY. MYSELF.” Well Duck, I think first you should master grabbing jewelry boxes off of dressers without killing yourself? Fair?
All the same, she’s carrying the box she eventually chose (after trying out her jewelry in every box, and then figuring out if she could wind the box herself) from the collection (a long, old rectangular box, covered in faded blue velvet), taking it with her everywhere, just in case she needs to put on a ring in a pinch. She’s prepared…to get fancy…on a moment’s notice. Don’t you just love being a girl?
