thoughts, words, deeds

Pandora

Write a Blog entry about a Hope Chest

I know about hope chests intellectually, but they seem to be less important in our time than they might have been in an earlier age. My mother has a box that she brought with her from her parent’s house. It rests at the foot of my parent’s bed and contains linens that are never really taken out. In fact, I’ve seen it open only a few times. When I was a teenager, my parents gave the three of us older girls cedar boxes that they bought from Amish craftsmen at a local farmer’s market. It is there, in my room. I do keep things in it, mostly cloth objects and mementoes of childhood. It’s a bit beat up by this point. The corner was crushed so that while the structure wasn’t compromised, it isn’t as pretty as it might have been at one point and the top is scratched, but I still keep it.

I think my sister Rachel still has hers, somewhere in her house. She has five kids, so it’s probably even more beat up than mine. I think that Joyce’s ended up burned in a fire that took her home about ten years ago along with most of what she and her husband owned.

My hope chest is not full of things that I’ve made or proof of any kind of wifely virtue. And that was its purpose in the past. A hope chest was things that belonged to a new bride. Things that she owned the way she didn’t own herself or any property that her father and husband associated with her. That’s why it seems odd to think about them today, not because they aren’t beautiful, but because they are not important any more. I care much more for my books than for the contents of the box.