One day cousin joe decided he didn't want to store the boxes of dishes that his mom had asked him to hold onto after she moved into assisted living. She had told me many years earlier she wanted me to have them -- but she would balk at the price of shipping them to me, 150 miles away. And then she would never allow me to stop by her home and get them, while I was on the road. Then one day they showed up on my doorstep. Three huge boxes too heavy for me to carry by myself.
My grandmother, my father's mother, had died almost a century ago, in the hospital, shortly after childbirth. There was no photo of grandmother passed down to his children or grandchildren (though I spent years doing family research trying to find even just one), no stories about her, what she was like. Just the pain of two young children left motherless. I grew up listening to my dad's pain.
So now I have grandmother's dishes. When I opened the boxes I expected fireworks, a flash in the sky, the rumbling of wind through the trees, or at least some trembling of my hands. None of those occurred. The dishes were a full set but plain. This was in contrast to the decorative hand painted dishes and cups from all over Europe I had received from my maternal grandmother, who had owned a bonafide antique shop.
I thought "They're plain to me, but they were special to her, to my grandparents, to their family."
We didn't need another set of dishes. We don't need more things to store in our garage. But this is the only physical thing in the world have that connects me to her. Did I just want to put them up on Craig'sList? Try to get a few bucks out of them and ensure that somebody who needs has use out of them? Maybe but not now...
More than a year has passed since the dishes arrived, a year in which they've been in the original three boxes in our garage. Both my dad and my mom has passed on. Then yesterday we brought up the extra leaf, set it in the dining room table, set out the white table cloth, and set the main dining room table with all the dishes, service for 12. And we had a party. Tuna fish salad, with sliced tomatoes, and pomegranate seeds garnishing on the side. Milk was served in the tea cups.
"To you, Grandma," we toasted. "May your soul be ever joyful in heaven."
I'm not sure what next.
Based on the designer stamp on the back signaling the dishes were Japanese and actually made in Japan, it's possible the dish set was a wedding present to the newlyweds. With barely a scratch, they look barely used! I feel I know even less about my grandma now than I did before. The dishes are beautiful to hold, the cups beautiful to the touch. What did she cook and place in those grand serving dishes? A roast? Did the two children laugh at the dinner table? Did she allow them to laugh, and join in? Did my grandfather, with his dour-looking face, who later gave the children away to an orphanage and foster parents?
Even the delicate sound of that teacup being replaced in its saucer was a connection. My grandmother - for a few years - listened to that sound.
Many people inherit dishes from their grandparents. Some are worth something, some are "worth" nothing. Do you make a crafts project out of them? Or sell them on Craig's List? Do you take out a photo of your grandparents while you sit and eat on those dishes?
My grandparents did not have creamed cheese and jelly on a rice cake, with cherries, and Activia with blueberries. And what's next will probably be more cold lunches like this, til we work our way through each dish and teacup.
But that's okay. And we never really do know "what's next."
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