I still have about 20 of them, wrapped neatly in a couple of her old handkerchiefs, tucked safely in the back of the second drawer of an old weathered end table.
…When she died, I found a silk envelope that was my grandfather’s from when he was in the war. It was stuffed beyond its capacity, filled with her linen handkerchiefs. There had to have been hundreds, but being a minimalist, as I still am today, I went through them one by one and selected only those that I considered perfect and pristine. Some had stains and others had deep creases from being folded and hidden away for decades. Yet some were perfect with brightly colored threads in greens, pinks, blues, and purples, stitched in intricate patterns and in the shapes of daisies, posies, and lilies. I didn’t need to keep them all. I would cherish those few, keep them in perfect condition, and hide them away so that each time I saw them they would be new to me, and yet they would bring back so many memories of her…
The two that I have wrapped around the old ceramic figurines appear to be all white and yet, up close, they have paisley details painstakingly stitched around the edges in a cream thread. Years after her death I discovered that the ceramic figurines that I cherished were nothing more than an adult Cracker Jack toy. Not that it made them any less significant, but the figurines came in every box of RedRose tea. It’s funny that I never saw her drink tea, but she knew I loved to play with her basket full of colorfully and playfully glazed figurines. My grandmother had nearly a hundred of them, most of them duplicates, but all of them played a role. There was a family of four bears that could all easily fit in the palm of your hand, all four of which I still have today. They were all slightly different shades of brown and tan, and one had a broken ear. When I would play with them, I was always the broken-eared bear. I wanted it to know that I liked it the most because I was afraid everyone else liked it the least.
There were giraffes (a family of three), a crash of rhinoceros, a pair of happy turtles, parrots, short-legged horses, horribly shaped monkeys, a pride of lions, a couple of sneaky raccoons, a jaguar, and dozens of others that I have forgotten over the years. But when it came time for me to decide what I wanted to keep, there was no doubt in my mind who was coming with me.
I never traveled with toys so when I came to my grandparents’ house, I played with what they had to offer. At home I had a pool and a bike, some neighborhood kids, and an older brother and sister that occasionally allowed me to tag along. In Michigan, thousands of miles from home, I didn’t know what to do outside on those muggy summer days. My brother and sister were much more outgoing and the few kids that lived in the neighborhood were closer to their age, making me a much younger outcast. I was used to finding my own entertainment though. So I spent entire afternoons creating storylines surrounding my animal figurines. They were a traveling zoo one week and an animal-filled neighborhood the next. They lived in houses made out of playing cards. They didn’t drive around in cars, but they would take the bus together. The bus just happened to be a child’s size eight. I wasn’t great at making houses out of playing cards, but at that age it was more about quantity rather than quality and I’d use two decks worth making individual houses for each species, easily covering the carpeted floor of the guest room.
After she died, I would take the group out every once in a while, set them all side by side, and look them all over. But I never played with them again. Maybe it was because I had other, exciting, easy toys when I was at home. I definitely didn’t have anything that required so much of my imagination. Maybe it was because it never felt right. I wanted to keep them, and to remember her, but I couldn’t have as much fun with them and without her. I still have the playing cards, too.
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