What I have left
After having known my Nan my entire life, here is what I have left of her:
Some photographs. I stole them when Pop died last year. I knew I probably wouldn't have another chance, and she was so beautiful.
Some mugs with faces on them.
A painting she did of three Tahitian girls. We used to paint together. The smell of turpentine makes me cry with the memory now.
An alabaster jewelry box. It says alabaster on the label, but it's a pale purple. Like stone lilac blossoms.
A gold-and-garnet ring that she gave to me for my eighteenth birthday. I'm wearing it now. When I was little, one of the garnets fell out and I found it in the bag of the vacuum cleaner. She remembered.
Some white china plates with a blue design on them. I commented once about how much they made her kitchen look like home.
Glass balls in a net; the kind used to float fishermen's nets. I remember being a child, never being allowed to touch them, sneaking my fingers between the netting to feel the cold, round balls. Nan used to remove them to wash the netting and I'd look at them, thinking about how they held the breath of the glassblowers who made them. I wish I'd talked to her about that... maybe I did, and that's why she willed them to me. If that's the case, I wish I remembered the conversation.
Her collection of blue and brown glass bottles. I will put them in my kitchen, to catch the light and throw it on my food. Blue glass in particular is supposed to have healing properties.
Three of her Royal Doulton figurines. It kills me that her collection, passed to her from her own mother, has now been split up among five daughters and one granddaughter - me. Her Doultons were like a family, and now they've been torn apart. Maybe for Christmas I can ask for a display case to keep my three Doultons safe.
A wolf painting that I did, around the same time as the Tahitian girls, in our afternoons painting together. I was so upset one morning when I came downstairs to find her in the dining room (which we had taken over as a studio) "fixing" my painting. The photograph I was using as a reference put the sleeping wolf in a bare and desolate place. I transformed it into a glade, with shafts of light and flowers. Nan painted it over, to turn it back into the tundra wastes of the photograph. I was livid. I don't want to remember feeling that way about our time together, so I told my Mom she could have the painting for her bare walls.
A marmalade jar. I'll use it for my lavender jelly, probably, because I'm the only one who likes it and that way I'll be the only one to use it.
The porthole-mirror. An old porthole from a ship, fitted with a mirror. I didn't even realize how much I wanted it until my Mom told me she'd left it for me. It made me feel like I was on an adventure as long as I never looked at its reflection. If I did, I'd see myself playing, and the illusion would be lost.
A small bedside table. I don't know which one she means, but in any case, I can always use a table. I just hope it survives life in my apartment.
Her "Daisy Dog"... I could be mistaken, but I think that's the doll I gave her when she was in the hospital this summer. She missed her dog, Voodoo. We had gone for a stroll through the hospital and we'd ended up in the gift shop. She saw the dog-doll and fell in love with it, stroking it and cooing gently. I waited until the next day, and bought it for her on the way up to see her.
A painting, described in the will as "Bedroom painting - Black Thing"... nobody knows what it is. I hope they can figure it out. Or not. It's difficult to know how much I want something when I don't know what it is.
A teddy-bear given to my brother and me by the OPP after my Mom crashed the car with us in it. The car had flipped three times in the air and landed upside-down. I think she was trying to kill herself, and to take us with her. Years later I told my Nan what had really happened, that Mom hadn't fallen asleep, she'd been playing a "game" with my brother and me where she waited till the very last moment to turn the car on a slippery gravel country road. Then she turned too late, and we crashed. Nan kept the OPP bear to keep my brother and me from fighting over it. Now it's mine, by virtue of memory.
Some photographs. I stole them when Pop died last year. I knew I probably wouldn't have another chance, and she was so beautiful.
Some mugs with faces on them.
A painting she did of three Tahitian girls. We used to paint together. The smell of turpentine makes me cry with the memory now.
An alabaster jewelry box. It says alabaster on the label, but it's a pale purple. Like stone lilac blossoms.
A gold-and-garnet ring that she gave to me for my eighteenth birthday. I'm wearing it now. When I was little, one of the garnets fell out and I found it in the bag of the vacuum cleaner. She remembered.
Some white china plates with a blue design on them. I commented once about how much they made her kitchen look like home.
Glass balls in a net; the kind used to float fishermen's nets. I remember being a child, never being allowed to touch them, sneaking my fingers between the netting to feel the cold, round balls. Nan used to remove them to wash the netting and I'd look at them, thinking about how they held the breath of the glassblowers who made them. I wish I'd talked to her about that... maybe I did, and that's why she willed them to me. If that's the case, I wish I remembered the conversation.
Her collection of blue and brown glass bottles. I will put them in my kitchen, to catch the light and throw it on my food. Blue glass in particular is supposed to have healing properties.
Three of her Royal Doulton figurines. It kills me that her collection, passed to her from her own mother, has now been split up among five daughters and one granddaughter - me. Her Doultons were like a family, and now they've been torn apart. Maybe for Christmas I can ask for a display case to keep my three Doultons safe.
A wolf painting that I did, around the same time as the Tahitian girls, in our afternoons painting together. I was so upset one morning when I came downstairs to find her in the dining room (which we had taken over as a studio) "fixing" my painting. The photograph I was using as a reference put the sleeping wolf in a bare and desolate place. I transformed it into a glade, with shafts of light and flowers. Nan painted it over, to turn it back into the tundra wastes of the photograph. I was livid. I don't want to remember feeling that way about our time together, so I told my Mom she could have the painting for her bare walls.
A marmalade jar. I'll use it for my lavender jelly, probably, because I'm the only one who likes it and that way I'll be the only one to use it.
The porthole-mirror. An old porthole from a ship, fitted with a mirror. I didn't even realize how much I wanted it until my Mom told me she'd left it for me. It made me feel like I was on an adventure as long as I never looked at its reflection. If I did, I'd see myself playing, and the illusion would be lost.
A small bedside table. I don't know which one she means, but in any case, I can always use a table. I just hope it survives life in my apartment.
Her "Daisy Dog"... I could be mistaken, but I think that's the doll I gave her when she was in the hospital this summer. She missed her dog, Voodoo. We had gone for a stroll through the hospital and we'd ended up in the gift shop. She saw the dog-doll and fell in love with it, stroking it and cooing gently. I waited until the next day, and bought it for her on the way up to see her.
A painting, described in the will as "Bedroom painting - Black Thing"... nobody knows what it is. I hope they can figure it out. Or not. It's difficult to know how much I want something when I don't know what it is.
A teddy-bear given to my brother and me by the OPP after my Mom crashed the car with us in it. The car had flipped three times in the air and landed upside-down. I think she was trying to kill herself, and to take us with her. Years later I told my Nan what had really happened, that Mom hadn't fallen asleep, she'd been playing a "game" with my brother and me where she waited till the very last moment to turn the car on a slippery gravel country road. Then she turned too late, and we crashed. Nan kept the OPP bear to keep my brother and me from fighting over it. Now it's mine, by virtue of memory.