:thoughts on legacy and leaving one:

the door knob was loose. you had to shake it and turn it just right for it to open. i always knocked, never quite comfortable enough to walk right in. i can see every nook and cranny of that old house in my memory. the kitchen, tiny, held a ceramic jar always full of butter cookies, the kind you line up on your fingers and eat one by one. the dining room just as you walk in stowed a table made for six covered by lace and a china cabinet overflowing with beautiful treasures.

my favorite thing in the whole house was that glorious vanity with the mirror as big as the moon and mahogany wood, imperfectly perfect with age. i longed for it to be mine, dropping hints, hopeful for the possibility that it would someday be passed on to me.

it never graced my home. i'm not sure where it landed after her passing, a family disheveled before her death, even more so after. i doubt that anyone took that vanity to love it and pass it along as i had hoped to.

i found redemption in an old sewing machine. a treasure passed down from that precious one, nearly eighty years old and full of loveliness. little eyes looked on in admiration as i learned to use this historic beauty, oozing with memories.

you could see them resurface as she turned the wheel, adjusting tension. reminiscent of ruffles and button holes tenderly sewn for her little one, now a grandmother. a knowing look of fleeting time filled her eyes as she shared stories from back when.

a moment of frustration with the machine led us to giggle over the infamous phrase she uses when upset, "o great!" i hugged her and kissed the top of her head, thankful for this moment in time. a moment that i will remember, share and pass down to my girls.

legacy, beauty from ashes.

*linking up with emily for imperfect prose