Happiness is a Choice

Our 'Things' Connect the Past to the Present

My husband and I leave in the morning for a two-week vacation.  Peggy Marie, my sister-in-law, plans to house-sit for us as she continues her recuperation from surgery.  Peggy Marie has a number of grandchildren who may, or may not, visit with her during our absence.  Since I am not in the habit of having people in my house while I'm away, I did a mental glimpse around to see what I was leaving behind.  Is there anything I would really miss or care about if it got broken, misplaced or damaged?  My eyes settled on a vase, Mama's vase.

I thought back to the stories that surrounded the vase and how much its presence has contributed to who I am.  As long as I can remember, that vase has been a part of my life.  The first recollection I have of it is on the day we moved from the 'little house' to the 'big house on the hill.'  Daddy pushed wheelbarrow-load after wheelbarrow-load of our belongings up the hill.  The vase was part of the last load.  Mama had taken it down from its customary spot on a kitchen shelf, wrapped it in a towel and laid it to the side.

"What's that over there in the corner, Mary?"

"My vase.  I'll carry it, John."  She picked it up and started out the door.  Once in our new residence, she unwrapped it and set it on the mantel.  She stepped back to admire the single item of decoration in an otherwise bare room, bare house actually.

"What do you think, Olevia?"  My mom spoke to me as if I were much older than my five years, but then, she always did.

"I like it, Mama.  Where did we get that vase?"

"That's MY vase, Olevia.  I got it from James when he came home from overseas during the Big War."

"Did he buy it for you?"

"Well, I guess so.  He got it in Italy and brought it across the ocean just for me.  He carried it a long time to bring it.  That makes it pretty important, don't you think?"

"Yes."  And I was off on some new direction, exploring what seemed to me to be a huge house.  After all, it had nine rooms and one closet.  We were moving from a three-room, shotgun variety, without closets.   

In a few months, Daddy bought a used, upright piano, and it was placed in a corner of the living room.  Mama had a couple of crocheted scarfs, and one was chosen to put on top of the piano.  We all stood admiring it when Mama spoke.

"Let's put my vase on the piano.  What do you think?"

Everyone agreed the vase was just the right ornament to make the piano even more special, and it sat there until the day the piano was sold about six years later. 

With the piano gone, the vase was moved to the dresser in my mom and dad's room.  It sat there during the last year-and-a-half my mother lived.  Sometimes, when I would sit on her bed, she would tell me stories about that vase: how James had brought it to her on his very first leave during the war, how no one had ever given her something like that before, and how special it was to her. 

She died in nineteen-fifty-six, and the vase was moved to the chest-of-drawers in my room where it stayed until I moved away in nineteen-sixty-two.  Many nights, I would lie in bed, look at the vase and think about 'things.'  I would imagine what it must have been like on the day James, my older, half-brother, came home.  Maybe he was wearing his Navy whites and looking so handsome when he walked into the yard.  I could imagine Mama running out on the porch to meet him, and I could see the tears in the corners of her eyes as he handed her the vase.  Mama seemed closer with that vase in my room. 

After I left home, Daddy moved the vase back to the mantel in the living room.  During my visits home, we would sit in rocking chairs and talk.  Several times, he mentioned the vase and how Mama wanted it to be mine someday.  I arrived on one of those routine visits home in nineteen-sixty-five to discover a heart attack had killed my father as he prepared for bed the night before. 

I sat in the living room a long time, thinking about things.  Finally, I got up, wrapped the vase in a towel and put it in the backseat of my car.  Soon the house would be full of people and all sorts of activity, and I thought it better to remove my vase from the center of such commotion.

The vase has since followed me everywhere, always occupying a place of honor wherever I am.  Today, it sits on a cabinet in my dining room, and I share its sixty-four year history with my grandchildren.  The value of my vase lies not in its monetary significance, of which there is little, but in its cohesive quality.  There are some things that, by their mere presence, provide a connection both to the past and the future