When my 96 year old grandfather passed away, my parents were left with the job of going through the old homestead to get it ready for sale. Grandma and Grandpa had lived there for more than 50 years and, being of the “use it up, wear it out, make it do or do without” generation, had never thrown anything away. It was a colossal undertaking.
Because we were not the ones ultimately responsible for the task at hand, my brother and sister and I saw it as our opportunity to discover the treasure trove of historical curiosities that the old folks had stashed away. Blue glass mason jars, all manner of butter churns, leather riding gloves, a collection of marbles and vintage records were some of our neatest finds. We pulled several Stetson and pillbox hats out of a closet and tried them on. They had a transforming effect, and we found ourselves feeling strangely nostalgic for an era not our own.
Other discoveries brought back memories! Like the old wringer washer that my Grandma had clung to, despite the combined efforts of my parents, aunts and uncles to sell her on the conveniences of a more modern machine. Just the thought of that ancient contraption used to torment me, thanks to my mischievous brother.
“Don’t make Grandma mad,” he’d say, drawing a finger slowly across his throat for effect as my eyes widened, “or she’ll put you through The Wringer.”
In time I grew wiser and, realizing that Grandma could never actually fit me between its long black rollers, came to love the old washer. There was something reassuring about watching Gram scrub the clothes on her board and then feed them through the wringer, just like she had done for as long as I could remember. Maybe it was the comfort of knowing that as everything around me changed – as even I changed – there was something that would always remain the same. It was what freed me to run about the yard without a care in the world, stopping only to look for frogs in a ditch, as Grandma hung her freshly laundered clothes on the line to dry in the summer breeze and Grandpa worked out in his vegetable garden, there on the old homestead.
But things did change. Grandma and Grandpa passed away, and the more discoveries that my brother and sister and I made in the house, the more we felt their absence. It’s strange, how the lives of these two people came so clearly into focus only after they were gone.
The best treasure we found was hidden up in the attic, tucked away inside a large wooden trunk, older than my grandparents. It was a scrap of paper and on it, in the long, elegant strokes of a fountain pen, someone had recorded the lyrics of a Lenten hymn. Just one stanza, maybe the favorite one or perhaps the only one that this long-gone relative could remember. The paper was folded and worn, as if it had been carried about for some time. Who penned these words to treasure? It will always be a mystery. Still, it’s strange but I felt as if somehow, I knew. At least, I saw very clearly and knew very deeply that part of someone’s life that has not and will never change or pass away, reassurance for all generations that reaches beyond the homestead – beyond the grave!
