I’m moving in a few weeks. I’ve started packing, sifting through our things deciding which of them are special enough to keep and which will make the trip to goodwill and in the midst of purging and packing I found a little treasure that made me stop what I was doing and just sit quietly.
My grandmothers slippers.
They are the knitted kind and smell like the farm where my grandmother used to live. I took them from the house after she passed away because my grandpa said it was ok and because I wanted something that reminded me of her in her everyday routine. I can just see her perfect posture as she sits to write letters at the kitchen table in the evenings, a pot of tea whistling on the stove, her feet in the knitted slippers. Maybe I hoped that the slippers would help me to walk in the steps of my grandmother who wasted NOTHING, made things from scratch, stitched quilts out of old dresses and grew plants for church folk that needed a helping green thumb. I sat with those slippers in my hand for a while and just REMEMBERED her.
When you move you go through all your STUFF and you ask yourself “why?” Why did we buy this. Why did we need THAT? WHY did we collect all this junk? And then you come across something like my grandmothers slippers and you are reminded about what is important. I put the slippers on my feet and continued packing. Yes, the slippers are special enough to keep.
This Mother’s Day, whether you are celebrating or remembering your grandmother, mother or mother-in-law, take some time to imagine what it would be like to walk in her shoes/slippers.
What qualities do you admire about her?
What experiences have bonded you with her?
How are you different from her?
In what ways do you wish you could be more like her?
What traditions has she passed on to you?
Read Proverbs 31: 13-31
