Walking into the past...

This past weekend, the kiddles, the man and I drove to my parents house four and a half hours away. We went to help them price items that we're wanted by any of my other family members from my Grandaddy's estate. Walking into his house on Saturday morning was like taking a bullet train back in time, and the emotions of going through his and my Grandma's life were quite unexpected. I had the assumption that the house would be empty except for the larger pieces of furniture that were going to be sold in the estate sale. I was so wrong...

Walking into the kitchen, sitting on the counter, was the spoon rest my Grandma used when she would cook. It's not just any spoon rest; It's a piece of china that's molded into a girl wearing a beautiful pink gown and within the skirt of the gown are the slots to hold the spoon. I remember playing with her as a little girl in my grandma's kitchen. She is now sitting next to my stove and has had a proper cleaning after all the years of use had all but consumed her, and she is perfectly spectacular.

When my grandad married again after her passing, none of us--my parents, my cousins, no one--could find my Grandma's things. We were pretty darn positive that his wife had thrown most of those things out. Her missing cookbook really pained me the most. Knowing that she had developed those recipes that she had fed us with and had perfected them over many years and that that account might be gone for good was just about too much for me. I can't tell you how many times I've mentioned to Mike over the past 12 years how much I wished I had her Coconut Cake recipe. Just as we were about to leave, I gave the kitchen one more once-over and there just as plain as day was her cookbook that she started keeping in 1959. Well that just about did me in. Leafing through it, I found so many of her favorites: Ice Box Biscuits, Hummingbird Cake and yep, in her handwriting, Coconut Cake. One funny note, Mike also found her apple and pear butter recipe. Which makes FIFTEEN QUARTS. Holy smokes. I can't recall it in it's entirety at this moment, but the one thing that sticks out in my head were the FIFTY POUNDS OF SUGAR it called for. How do you even BUY fifty pounds of sugar? Mercy. I remember it though--and it was so sweet you could chew it. As she would have said, "That's called seasoning Sugar (her name for me). In the South, we season our food".

Saturday was a difficult day. Mike, in going through their file cabinet found their marriage certificate from December 28th, 1940 and their original birth certificates. We found letters that my mama had written to them before I was born telling them how much each of them meant to her that she thought were lost forever. I found the letter I wrote to them from summer camp when I was Devyn's age. And my two babies walked away with something from the great-grandparents that it just seemed were meant for them: Devyn, my rocks and minerals collector was given two authentic arrowheads that my Grandaddy had found on his farm. (Next to the farm on one of the ridges were two Indian caves dating to around 1740--no kidding). You should have seen the girl's face light up! They're perfect . And Aiden was given a ceramic horse that had belonged to my grandma, complete with saddle and bridle. It was important to me that they each have something from two people who molded my life so profoundly.

I could go on and on about the things we found on Saturday. My mama and I cried our weight in tears and when we left I felt like we had just had the incredible privelege of walking through thier lives--their love for each other and their children and grand-children, and their great-grand-children. Everett and Helen were amazing people. I hope that in my life, I'll make them proud.