Category: Tuesday’s Treasures

Heart Warming Messages

~ Denise ~ 8 Comments

Text messages….Email….Facebook….

All a quick way to stay connected.  I use each one.   I’ve found certain family and friends respond better to certain means of communication.

However, there is something heart warming about “snail mail” pieces.

Something resonates in me about the way the person puts the note together, how they sign it, even if they doodle on it.  All of these things I look at.

Recently we received a sweet note from our Granddaughter.  It is definitely going in the keep box.

Now if you’re wondering have I kept all the cards and letters I’ve received over the years, no, but I have kept some.

There is something heart warming about opening a card or reading a letter from someone dear.

Lately I’ve had to go through some paperwork to be shredded, and found a few cards and letters that got mixed in.

Found a note from my Grandmother after we had a 80th birthday celebration for her.  She tucked the note in an anniversary card to us.  Her birthday party had turned into a sort of family reunion.

When she sent the note, it was special.  I kept it.

But, somewhere in my head I forgot it.  I forgot what she wrote.

I had always kept the loving feeling she conveyed with me, but reading her loving words again, was very special.

That is what is heart warming about reading a letter or card again.  Especially when the person is no longer with you.

What a blessing it was to read again.

A text, email, or Facebook message just doesn’t seem to have the same impact, at least for me.   Don’t misunderstand, I appreciate getting those type of messages from people I care about if that is the way they communicate, it’s just a handwritten note is different.  That is why I keep them.  There is something about finding them, seeing someone’s handwriting that is no longer with you, reading their words, and having them talk to you, again.  Their handwriting, just like their voice, if recorded or saved “speaks” again.

Letter writing and the days of “pen pals” seems long ago.  My kids probably would laugh at the expression “pen pal“.   I however, am not ancient (regardless of what they may think), so it wasn’t that long ago that is just what one did to communicate.  I can remember having various pen pals when I was younger.  I even was much better about letter writing to family and friends.

Ah, but now I’m just as guilty about not writing notes or letters to people.  Even the yearly Christmas cards don’t have all the individualized notes like they used to have on all of them.  I tell myself I’ve cut back because my fingers start to ache, which is true, however, I could plan better and not wait till the last-minute.

I wonder sometimes if other people save these things or think about this stuff, or if I’m just overly sentimental.

Probably the latter.

That’s okay.

I’m going to read my Grandmother’s and Granddaughter’s notes again, before being safely tucked away to read another day.

Notes

Blessings to keep.

I also have a letter to write.  Maybe, just maybe there is someone else who is a little sentimental too.

What a treasure!

~ Denise ~ 9 Comments

I usually spend the drive to work in quiet.

Sometimes in prayer.  Sometimes just thinking about the day ahead.

Once in a while I will turn on the radio, but not often.

I like the quiet in the morning.

This morning I was driving along, and my soul sang silently just these words:

Gloria in excelsis Deo
Gloria in excelsis Deo

My finger reached forward and touched the radio button.

The car was filled with the sounds of the exact chorus  at the exact time that it was playing in my head!

I just love it when God does that!  I just had to take a minute and share that with you.

How about that for a Tuesday Treasure!

Gloria in excelsis Deo

Gloria in excelsis Deo

“Engaging in Memories and Tiny Treasure”

~ Denise ~ 8 Comments

I was plowing right along there with my personal daily blogging challenge, until yesterday.  Had a busy day with work and meetings, and just did not have the time needed to post, nor the mental thoughts to think about a memory for “Monday’s Memories”.  By the time I got home yesterday, I was pretty much spent.

That’s okay, it was good to sit and relax, and today I figured I could just combine my “Monday Memory” with a “Tuesday Treasure”.

I was thinking how I really don’t blog about my father’s side of the family much.  Granted, most of my father’s family, with the exception of an aunt and a cousin, have no contact with me.  I was particularly thinking though I haven’t blogged about my paternal Grandmother.  We called her NanNan.

I probably spent just as much time around NanNan as I did my maternal Grandmother, however, I do not feel like I knew her.  She seemed distant to me.  I used tell my Mother that my sister was her favorite.  I used to feel like I was getting her disapproval most of the time.  I don’t recall her being affectionate.

NanNan was the person who decided that being a Jehovah’s Witnesses was the course of lifestyle for her family. My understanding is that my Grandfather did not agree.  I did not know him.  Most of my recollections of NanNan are from attending meetings, going door-to-door, conventions and other JW activities.   She lived with her daughter, my Aunt Jean, who I am very fond of.  I liked staying the weekends with Jean, however, I always needed to be up and ready to go with NanNan on Sunday mornings.

My Aunt Jean married late in life, at which time NanNan had a small home built that she moved into.  She seemed happy in her home and was independent for awhile.

The first time I heard the term rheumatoid arthritis was in connection with NanNan.  My Dad started taking her to doctor visits, and she became unable to do a lot of things for herself around the house.  The disease progressed and soon she was unable to clean her home.  I don’t recall why it was decided that I would be the one who would stay overnight on occasions to help clean and take care of her, but that is what I did.   I sort of liked cleaning her little house.  I would pretend, it was like my little cottage.  I would be very proud of my work and look to NanNan for approval, and if she smiled at the job I did, that made me feel good inside.  On really good days, she could cook the best Chicken and Dumplings   I remember when I realized that she wouldn’t be able to anymore, she couldn’t handle the pots and pans.  Some days I would cook for her.

On bad days NanNan would sit in her chair in the living room, just watching me or looking out the window.  She would sit with her hands curled up in her lap.  Every so often she would dip her hands in a hot wax treatment to help with the pain.  I remember how she moaned in pain.  Some days she would be better, but eventually she was unable to take care of her basic needs, and I recall her waking me up in the middle of the night to help her.  Even in my early teens, I knew it was very  hard for her to ask me to help her in that way, and to help her get dressed and with basic needs.  I knew she needed me.

It was on one of those visits that I was in her bedroom and cleaning her dresser and looking through her jewelry.   I asked her about a tiny, dainty pin.  It was broken and missing a little pearl, but I still thought it was just the prettiest thing.  I had never seen her wear it.

She said “Oh, that old pin, you can have it.  It’s broken though”.  I told her I thought it was pretty.  What she said next surprised me.  “That was my engagement gift from your Grandfather”.   She got quiet then.  I told her that I couldn’t take it (but inside I was hoping I could).  She told me she didn’t wear it and I should take it.

After I was home and showed it to Mom I think she was just as surprised as I was about receiving the pin.  She took me and the pin to a jeweler and they repaired it and replaced the pearl.

There a just a few things that I remember my NanNan by.  I remember her with this pin.  I remember her when I play or walk by her piano she left me.  The other thing is I try to keep moving my fingers and joints, I remember how she progressed, I have RA too.

On that evening many years ago, I felt like I saw a different side of NanNan then I had before.  One pin, given as a gift symbolizing an engagement of two people, and connecting two others.

Just a little old pin.

pin

But, it’s not the pin.  It’s the stories with it.

Trash or Treasure?

~ Denise ~ 8 Comments

I’m sure people wonder why I have some of the possessions I do.

Like this pencil cup.

It isn’t fancy, or new or anything.  The paper is peeling off, and the bottom has ink stains.

It could easily be classified as trash I suppose.

Ah, some of you are remembering why I have some pansy items.

This little cup sat on an inlaid table made by Great Uncle Bill next to Grandmom’s favorite chair.

There was a bit of family “interest” in that table after her death.

I liked the pencil cup.  She used to keep her crochet hooks there along with her pencils and pens.

It sits next to my favorite spot now.

Those little pansy faces smile on.

Gift Shop Purchases

~ Denise ~ 5 Comments
pansy
pansy (Photo credit: paparutzi)

When I was younger I’d go shopping in a little gift shop that we just called “Eleanor Hutcherson’s”.  I don’t know if that was the name of the shop, or if that was the name of the owner. It was near the corner of Main and Rt. 10.   It was a shop that I mainly remember for the trinkets and jewelry.  What can I say, my attraction to shiny things started early.

I remember shopping there with Mom, Grandmom and my sister.  Both Mom and Grandmom would buy some of their jewelry there.   Every once in a while, Mom would let Lorene and I pick out something special for Grandmom.  I loved doing that.  (Looking back, I wish I could remember what time of the year it was.  I wonder if it was near Grandmom’s birthday or Mother’s Day?  Mom had a way of still honoring those events without ‘celebrating’ them which other JW’s wouldn’t do.  You may recall me mentioning that my Mother was not ‘raised’ a JW).

Like I was saying every once in a while, she would announce that we were going shopping for Grandmom.  Usually, we would go to Eleanor’s.  I didn’t rush the process.  I wanted to take my time.  It had to be just right.   I remember these little white boxes, soft, fluffy cotton inside, propping up their treasures, all lined up on tables.  I’d pour over the boxes, looking for one thing in particular.  Pansies.

I remember Grandmom having items around the house with pansies on them.  I have always associated pansies with Grandmom.  Later I started associating poppies with her too, because I came to realize that she loved them just as much.

Mostly, though pansies were something that I’d look for when I wanted to pick up ‘a little something’ for her.   Pansies were what I was looking for back then among the white boxes.

I wasn’t disappointed.

I remember her wearing them.  I remember where she kept them.  She kept them in a little white box in her dresser with the rest of her jewelry.

Now they live in a little white box in my jewelry chest.

That memory shines on as much as they still do.