gilian's gardens: and some white Penaljo shoelaces

Last night, I decided it was time to sort through my gramma's cedar chest and decide what to keep and what to not keep. The cedar chest has finally made its way from gramma's room, into my bedroom, into the guest room, and now into the livingroom and it seemed somehow irreverent to keep all of the boxes of cough drops and q-tips and nail files that belonged to gramma, right in the livingroom for all to explore, because you have to know that if you put a cedar chest in the livingroom, company will open it and well, it just didn't seem right.

It has been over two years since my beloved gramma passed away. She was my biggest cheerleader, all of my life. We spent countless hours together, for as long ago as I can remember. We talked about everything from politics to religion to recipes to family gossip and everything in between. We wept together, we laughed heartily, we played games and we took drives in her car to eat lunch, to shop, and to sightsee. She cared for me throughout my life, and I was privileged to care for her during that last year of her amazing life.

When I was a little girl, I remember asking my gramma about her cedar chest. She explained to me that it had been her mother's chest first and when her mother passed away, she inherited it. She told me then and always after that the chest would one day be mine.

After she passed away, slowly, a little bit at a time, I sorted through gramma's things. First I executed her wishes in her will. After that, I cleared out her financial documents, and because they represented a very painful time in her final years, shredding them was a good release of some of the anger I felt at the pain she lived with during that last year. Next, I moved her bedroom set to the basement for Jack Jr to use. That move involved clearing out her dresser and nightstand. At that time, the pain of losing her was still too raw, so rather than organizing and discarding her things, I collected what she hadn't already given away and carefully packed it into her cedar chest.

Now, two years later, it seemed like the right time to look through her things once again. I opened the chest and immediately, the cedar smell reminded me of time spent with her looking into the chest. I carefully removed the items and looked at each before deciding what to keep and what to send off for new adventures in somebody else's cedar chest of life. I was having a difficult time thinking about giving away her things, until I realized I could take photos of the items and share them with you, my internet friends, and always be able to look back at them.

So here is the list of most of the things I kept:

The porcelain doll that was gramma's pioneer great-gramma's and was brought across the plains in a covered wagon.
The plum-colored bumpy glass tray that was always on gramma's color tv.
The small round mirror from gramma's dresser that she kept her bottles of nail polish and perfume on.
The little yellow plastic box that she kept all of her manicure tools in, along with all of the tools and the red rubber band that held the lid in place.
A black box, lined with foil, that she kept her makeup in, and all of her makeup--powder, eye shadow, mascara, rouge--not blush, rouge-- and lipstick.
The last purse she carried, a large, black soft leather bag with a shoulder strap, and all of the things she kept inside of it--her wallet (with her state ID card that she got when she gave up her driver's license), nail files, chap stick, a bit of change, her three pairs of sunglasses, dental floss, and half a box of kleenex (or so).
A yellowed copy of the newspaper from the day JFK died and laminated copies of newspaper articles describing my grandpa's death. I added a copy of her obituary to the other newspaper clippings.
A bowling trophy and bowling patch she won as champion of the 1958-59 ladies bowling league.
A small half-full bottle of Sea Breeze.
A pair of white Penaljo shoelaces "for ladies who wear white."

Some of the things I am prepared to send to new adventures include: