When I go thrifting, I am really drawn to Things That Could’ve Belonged to Someone’s Grandma™. You see, the only grandmother I ever knew died when I was 3 years old. She was my grandma from my mother’s side. Her name was Diana. I only got to know her through the stories my mother told me. Her mantra, that later became my mum’s and now has become mine, was “if you don’t have a lot of money, you have to have a lot of ideas.” It was a necessary mantra for my grandma to have, since she had to raise a bunch of kids (I think she and my grandpa had 7 or 8 9 offsprings, only 6 survived, all girls) in a time of war when food was scarce. I remember my mum telling me about how they used to have to split one chicken egg between her and her sisters at mealtime when they were kids.
My grandma was a homemaking teacher. I like to think that I got my craftiness from her. Well, my mum was pretty crafty, too. I guess it’s in the gene and I inherited that gene. But still, I can’t help wishing I’d inherited something less abstract from her to have as a keepsake. Hence my fascination with Things That Could’ve Belonged to Someone’s Grandma™, which is a little ironic considering my grandma never had much in terms of worldly possessions. But she could’ve. She could’ve had that recipe card box in the picture above in her kitchen and the handwriting on the recipe cards could’ve been hers.
If my grandma were alive, she’d be 100 years old on May 24. And you know what? I’m going to celebrate it. I don’t know yet how, but I am going to give her a lovely centennial.