What Vestige Left?

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                                                              What Vestige Left?

I think what any of my ancestors would find most surprising if they were to come back is that there is so little of them left.  My paternal grandma would look for her quilts, her embroidery and her China cabinet full of glass and porcelain and would find none of them in my house.  I spent too many years traveling, so my older sister Betty Jo and my cousin Betty Jane wound up with all of grandma’s things. The one good quilt is over Betty Jo’s bed in the managed care facility where she now lives, but she knows nothing of it or of us or of her own children, being the prisoner of Alzheimer’s that she is.

My cousin Betty Jane passed on years ago, so the China cabinet full of Grandma’s dishes is in Idaho in the house of  her second husband. What Grandma would find of herself in my house is:
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one blue bowl filled with jade plant cuttings by my kitchen sink,

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an old pottery canning jar above my kitchen cabinets––

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and remnants of her tatting, a small square cut from a pillowslip she embroidered and part of a quilt square that I used in a retablo entitled “Our Lady of Notions.” (The view above is looking down on the top of the retablo–details not shown because of the shooting angle in the view of the entire retablo below.)

judy 2Amazing that so little remains of her in my house when she had a house stuffed full of things.  Now that I am the one with the house stuffed full, I wonder what of me will remain after fifty years.  Perhaps just this blog or my books or my artwork.  Maybe that is why I am so compulsive about writing and doing art–that need to be remembered.

The Prompt: Modern Families––If one of your late ancestors were to come back from the dead and join you for dinner, what things about your family would this person find the most shocking?
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/prompts/modern-families/

10 thoughts on “What Vestige Left?”

  1. hirundine608

    Yeah, yet it’s all just stuff. I’m at the point of trying to shed it rather than accumulate.

    What would they think? Maybe that you’ve had your own life. Acquiring your own stuff. Maybe they would prefer your “stuff” over their’s?

    I have a couple of pieces of furniture of my grandparents. They were glad to get rid of it at the time. Now, I’m stuck with them … in the way, in my storage locker. Yet, I’m not prepared to junk them. Having hauled them around from half a world away.

    We come into this world crying, with hands curled tight and leave with them stretched open. What was that, about a camel and the eye of a needle? Cheers Jamie.

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  3. rudyblues57

    Hi Judy! Lovely post, I just recently helped Mom and Dad close down their duplex here. They decided to winnow down to one house. It was a little bittersweet seeing the “things”, but the memories those things evoked were glorious. As long as we have those memories I’m sure our ancestors will still be pleased with us.

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  4. alphabetstory

    We recently moved to a one bedroom tiny apt. from a four bedroom home. Yep there was a lot to go, but I did keep some books, artwork and a precious drop leaf desk and some antique side tables. Sad but necessary.

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  5. Pingback: Legacy | lifelessons – a blog by Judy Dykstra-Brown

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