Day 10
Friday, April 20
Today I was going to count cleaning out my closets as my loving moment. I cleaned out three large closets and have bags and bags of goodies for the Goodwill. I followed my rules and enjoyed the process, reminisced about my daughters cute pink boots that she's outgrown and envisioned the new little girl who would be wearing them soon.
In comparison to how or what I was hoping to feel, it wasn't earth shattering. Giving stuff to the Goodwill is something I do anyway so I wasn't that thrilled about counting this as "the" event of the day.
But about 9:00pm tonight I had a very unexpected moment.
I thought my daughter was sleeping but all of a sudden, she appeared all sleepy eyed in the hallway. She must have heard me and thought I was having more fun than she so why not get up? This closet housed a lot of my late grandmothers china as well as clothing that I was sorting through.
Izzy curled up in my lap and asked about the pretty china. I explained it was her great grandmothers and I was just looking at it. I actually don't know why I don't have it out, it really is beautiful. I can remember the precise location in her little old house where she had it all on display. Why was it hiding in my closet, especially when it only made me smile?
She wanted to touch it all. I mean, all of it. The hand painted plates from the late 1800's, the depression glass to the crystal creamer cups. I was so tentative (I'm lying...at first I was like, NO WAY, then my heart regained it's normal rhythm and then I became tentative)...but then I figured, well...what the heck. She carefully lined up all the pieces and let me talk and talk and talk. Then she told me about a dream she had about my grandma and described what she looked like. Considering she has never seen a picture of her, it was pretty accurate.
I bet I told Izzy 30 minutes worth of stories about my grandmother. What she was like, what we did for fun together, etc. It was so wonderful to really talk about my grandmother again. I think about her often but I rarely talk about our stories or memories I have of her. It felt wonderful.
If I had put Izzy back in bed, my night would have been very different. I would've missed out on this opportunity to reconnect with a very special part of my life.
How Izzy felt:
Being able to touch things that are "fragile" hopefully made her feel important and that I trust her. Also, this was the first experience of her getting out of bed and coming to meet me in the hallway. She probably knew she was supposed to be in bed so maybe she could sense that by her simple act of joining me in the hallway would allow me to feel an inordinate amount of love. I can't help but know, she woke up for a reason.
How I felt:
It felt so blissful to relive the love I have for my late grandmother.
Lessons learned:
I'm going to find the beautiful, sentimental things in my house and dust them off. I'm going to fill old creamer cups with flowers and put something yummy in the soup bowls. Just in writing this, I have a huge smile on my face. It already is bringing me so much happiness.
No comments:
Post a Comment