inside of my great grandmothers' beautiful antique sewing cabinet there are a few remnants of her past life. bits that were in it when it was given to me . . . and that i felt, should be left as found.

the old red cardboard box is actually labeled as a bible box. my grandmother used it for a few loose buttons and needles and the odd bit of thread wound onto a cardboard holder. i wonder where the bible has gone to . . . ? . . .inside the door is a cubby that holds the box of CLINTON No. 5 - DRESSMAKER PINS and the bible box and several very dusty spools of thread. i think that there is something about going through these things of my grandmothers and feeling suddenly closer to her . . . a bittersweet comfort and reminder of who she was and what she valued . . . she was a strong, hardworking and gracious business woman whom i didn't know nearly well enough.

my grandmother also loved to garden and lived in California where she could and did grow quite a beautiful garden very successfully. i remember wandering through the front part of it as a six or seven year old child and having the feeling that it was pure magic . . . very thickly planted with an amazing variety of plants and very well tended with a "secret garden" sort of feel to it. she lived in the city but once in the garden, this fact was easily forgotten. in the back yard there was a lemon tree that was prolific and grandma would always send us home with a box of lemons if they happened to be ripe when we visited. my father loved lemons and was thrilled with this gift~!~ occasionally, on the years we couldn't visit, grandma would mail us a box of them, knowing that lemon trees didn't thrive in our part of the U.S. and that my dad had a special fondness for them.

i wonder sometimes it this isn't part of the reason that i love to garden . . . do you suppose gardening can be a geneticly inherited tendency?

this post surprises me . . . i really don't know why i'm thinking of my grandmother today. i usually think of her a lot in May, as that is the month in which she died. i do not know when her birthday was . . . or what prompts this bit of nostalgia . . . maybe the wonders of my own garden combined with the opening of the sewing cabinet created a magical combination that just couldn't be denied . . .