As you can see the colors have arrived and fall is here. It's everywhere now, not just on my mountaintop farm. It is a marvel, every single year. This time of year means something else to me and maybe to a few of you too. It means family gatherings. My mum hosts a particular dinner each year for family that live close, but somehow we never see. I enjoy catching up with them each year. Our childhood was hard and it's good to see that we've all survived and some of us are even thriving.
This year as a special gift, mum spent hours, days, copying all the family photos that she has so that everyone could have a copy. Funny how as you get older those keys to the past become so much more valuable to you.
So, while I was collecting my children from their weekly work day at the grandparents' house, I started leafing through the small piles of copied photos. There were some that I had never seen. They showed my dear little grandmother when she was young. Her hair was still jet black and her eyes still had a sparkle when she smiled. She wasn't yet worn down by hardships. She didn't smile easily when I knew her, and she never talked about the past.
I sat admiring her face for a long while, her hair, her clothes in those old photos. The way she smiled with her sister and mother and seemed more at ease, more herself. Her mother was an amazing seamstress and kept my grandmother and her children in decent clothes with the most detailed designs.
I imagine that when she couldn't count on anything else in the world, she could count on her family, and wearing the clothes her mother created for her made her feel wrapped in her arms. I imagine she learned to care for her children by her mother's example. She made each of her children and grandchildren feel like we were her favorites. I know I thought I was her favorite and I though she hung the moon.
If I could do one thing as a mother, if I could take just one lesson away from my time with my grandmother, it would be that. I would keep my family together no matter what happens or how large it grows, or how much I dislike my new in-laws (and she did secretly dislike them!). And no matter what choices they make or where life takes them, they would feel loved by me. They would know that I was always there, willing to help however I could, and they would always be welcomed in my home.
I decided to dedicate this post to her--my grandmother when she still smiled. I tried my best to copy her hairstyle from the 1940s, but I'm afraid I didn't do it justice. She didn't really wear much make-up; she didn't need to. And, when it came to dresses, my grandmother kept her colors natural and low key and her styles detailed and lovely, so I chose this Caterina dress and I think she would approve. And if she didn't I would never know it. I'd just go on feeling loved by her, like she thought I hung the moon.
