While I was busy scrambling around trying to plan a wedding in two months, I was also attempting to plan for a future with Raymond. Being nineteen, neither of us had lived on our own. That meant we needed all the basics to get a household up and running. It was an overwhelming task to create a registry for two reasons, the first reason being that I really had only the foggiest idea of what was necessary to take those first baby steps into newlywed cohabitation together. The second reason was the fact I kept balking at the prices. If I wouldn’t pay that amount for a set of dishes, why on earth would I expect someone else to for me?
Our little community of Wurtsboro, New York had a summer event on the main street that year, shortly before our August wedding. The church we attended had some items for sale out on the front yard and amongst it all I found a set of dishes I had to have. It was not a pattern I would have selected on my own, but I had eaten off of plates with little brown butterflies fluttering around the edges many times at my Grandma’s home. After her heart attack, my uncle had moved in with her, so it was his home too. I learned later that he was the one who had picked out the dishes for Grandma, but it made it all the more special because I love them both dearly. Many a Sunday dinner was shared at their dining table, and seeing the familiar pattern awakened a treasure trove of memories. My uncle is still with us but my Grandma passed away a few months before I turned fifteen. Anyone else who looked at those dishes probably saw just that, dishes. But I saw family.
The people manning the table knew us and about my upcoming wedding, so they graciously offered us a discount for the entire set and threw in a set of purple wine glasses as well, “For orange juice,” they teased. I was only nineteen after all!
Ten years later, there have been several casualties but much of the original purchase remains. All of the cups have miraculously remained intact, while most of the plates or bowls that met their fate on the kitchen floor have since been replaced thanks to my mother-in-law and her husband, who found this pattern at a thrift store.
As I unpack boxes for what feels like the millionth time, it brings me comfort in the chaos to find little things like a stack of dishes that transport me back to happy times. I can see my Grandma laughing as my father and uncle crack jokes around the dinner table. I can smell the ham and au gratin potatoes on my plate, as I take a fresh roll from the basket being passed around. I can see into the past when I look at these dishes, and I think these are the sort of things in life that are worth sharing.
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