as small as a world and as large as alone, This is the box my grandmother gave me, that...

3:25am August 19, 2014

This is the box my grandmother gave me, that originally came from her mother. I wanted to post it because it’s very simple but absolutely beautiful, and it reminds me of my great-grandmother. This is the box that the ring was in when I picked it out after my great-grandmother died.

I feel really lucky to have known my great-grandmother. Women in our family live a long time, in general, even when there are a lot of health problems. She lived into her nineties and spent most of that at home, being taken care of by her son, even when she was bedridden for many of the final years. I always appreciated that he kept her at home until the last moment it was humanly possible, it taught me something about how our family cares for its own rather than immediately throwing them in institutions the moment they fall or something. (She was always falling and breaking her hip and it did a lot of damage over the years.)

She lived in a tiny house, possibly smaller than my current apartment. But there was something about the house that made it hers. Every time I went there, it felt like the entire house and she had a symbiotic relationship, so that it was filled up with her, and she was filled up with it. She was very generous with her time and energy, even when she didn’t have much of either. I only wish I could have known her as well as my mother knew her (she was my mother’s mother’s mother).

She had something like eight kids, so her birthday parties turned into giant family reunions. I wasn’t as fond of those because it usually meant being chased all over the place by distant cousins I barely knew. But I loved going to visit her, and listening to her talk in Swedish. She came over from Sweden totally by herself when she was something like 12 years old. She worked as a maid for awhile, she raised a huge family during the Depression, she was a very strong woman. But not strong in a way where she ever lost sight of things like niceness and generosity. I’m pretty sure she was a true Hufflepuff: She worked hard, she loved people, she was generous and giving and kind. My mom put together a recipe book from all her recipes and I’ve used it to bake from. A lot of them are Swedish recipes modified for the ingredients available during the Depression.

Anyway, this was her jewelry box, I think. And then when I visited my grandmother years ago, she gave it to me. Which felt like a big honor. I really love the way it reminds me of her, and her house, and all the good things about both of those. There are houses that look really impressive to people but are horrible places, and there are houses that don’t impress most people but are wonderful places. Most people would not be impressed by her house, because it was so small, because she was poor. But it was an amazing house if you actually know how to tell the personalities of houses, and its personality and her personality grew together over the years. And it was full of so much love.