Hello.
I betcha wanna know where the title of my blog came from. Yes?
I have this miraculous possession. You know, the one that you would grab if the house was on fire.
It came to me by grace. Here is my story.
Details of the Heart
Clara stirred her coffee. The cream swirled, the two colors merged, becoming one. As she took a sip she glanced at her neighbor over the rim of her cup. Her tears had not stopped, but she was regaining composure. Clara waited. She set her hand, roughed from years of tending to the needs of her family, over her neighbor's clinched fist. She rubbed it softly, smoothing away the distress as if it were a wrinkle. Her neighbor continued her rant, this time with more intelligible words than when she first arrived over an hour ago. Clara nodded and offered eye contact, and a pursing of the lips that connected more with her neighbor than a thousand words.
This is why they came to my grandmother's house, one after another, to sit at her kitchen table, to cry, to share, to feel connected to one who did not judge, did not fix, did not even speak, but offered the companionship of her coffee and her presence. Clara's home was the Starbucks of her day. However there were no concocted macchiatos or frappuccinos, no decaf, or fat free libations. She offered modern day counseling with a listening ear and free refills, no questions asked, with one caveat -cream or sugar? The star witness to this neighborhood ritual was the spoon jar, the priest in the confessional offering spoons rather than Hail Mary's.
If it is true, that life is in the details, then the detail that bears mentioning is the spoon jar. Set front and center on the kitchen table, it was taken for granted for it's contribution to the ceremony of womanly purging. Privy to neighborhood confidences, were its whereabouts known today it might very well have to be entered into the witness protection program. It was an amber- jewel colored glass, bearing more resemblance to a vase than a jar. It undulated yellow, purple, green and pink, a delightful display of holographic colors, as light reflected through the rich warm glass. The rounded curves of it's scalloped lip reflected circles of silver light. On both sides an embossed single rose, opened in full bloom, was revealed with leaves filling the remaining surface. Two handles emerged from the base, thick and sturdy. They arched gracefully upward to form a swan neck shape, each making one half of a heart.
Over the course of 22 years my grandmother had nine children, six daughters and three sons. She traveled only a few miles in her life, from her childhood home in the Appalachian mountains, to the home where she raised her family. She was a poor woman in worldly possessions, but rich in treasures of the heart. When my mother was born, number eight of nine children, my grandmother was 46. Ten years later she died, after slipping quietly into bed on cold November night. The story is told she died with a smile on her face and not a wrinkle in the bed covers. It seems fitting that a woman who offered so much comfort to others should die peacefully.
After her death, there were no family heirlooms to disperse, only memories of the details of their life together. It comes as no surprise that attached to the spoon jar, like bees to flowers, were fragrant memories. The spoon jar and the memories it evoked quickly began it's ascent to fame, complete with high demand and unworthy status, a hero-kind-of-worship, usually saved for the young and innocent, a thing to replace the irreplaceable. Funny how a common object, becomes cherished, not for what it would fetch on eBay, but for its iconic representation, as if it now contain the very life of its owner.
The spoon jar traveled the country, a vagabond on exhibit as it became the prize in a game of relative roulette where the odds of winning were slim. It was painstakingly passed from mother to daughter, to sister, to aunt, to granddaughter, each guarding it as a precious jewel valuable not in dollars, but in the sacred memories it held as clear as the light it reflected. Many years later it was no small miracle when my mother became the proud keeper of the spoon jar. It was the only possession she had that belonged to her mother, therefore it achieved museum quality status in our home, displayed proudly on the top shelf of the china cabinet behind a glass door. My mother fondly recalled that as a young child it was her responsibility to keep the spoons cleaned and placed in the spoon jar, ready for visitors. Barely tall enough to reach the kitchen faucet, she would stand on a stool beside the sink to accomplish her mission.
Today, 67 years after the death of my grandmother and 14 years after the death of my mother, I gently set newly washed spoons inside the spoon jar. A tiny, bell-like sound rings out. I find comfort knowing that this ritual connects me to my past and to generations of women who no longer grace my life or this world. I imagine my grandmother, my aunts, my mother, placing clean spoons in the jar after carefully washing them and wiping them dry on a worn-thin dish towel. They too, heard the tiny bell sound. Although I never met my grandmother, I came to know her and imagine what her life was like through this simple object. I see her, getting ready for the neighbor who would stop by to share sad news, whose trembling hand would reach for a clean spoon to stir their coffee, as they unburdened their heart to my grandmother’s listening ear, or watching her daughter, my mother, wash and dry the spoons, offering guidance to her and also see my grandfather, sitting across from her at the kitchen table, his aged-spotted hand reaching for a spoon, mixing his cornbread chunks with buttermilk, a treat; his afternoon cocktail.
My grandmother lived her daily life with a detail that would connect her to the future. She could not have known that this small ritual would now be her granddaughter’s to cherish. I look closely and listen to what this detail, this ordinary object has to say and I see, once again, that the handles form a heart. I like to think I have the hearts of past generations here with me in this spoon jar.
So leave a comment...what are the details of your heart?
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