Trinket Box to the Past

I was at Target the other day and I actually had some time to wander a little. Usually, I have a list and I have to get in and out as quickly as possible. But my list was kind of short and my brother told me to take my time because he missed seeing the kids.

I don't buy a ton of "stuff". As it is, I always think I have too much stuff and am looking to get rid of "stuff". But then I saw something that caught my eye. Something, that for some reason, brought my back to being 5, 6 or 7. They had a pink one that I think I really loved, but it matched nothing in my house. So I walked away. But I found myself going back for the white one. It reminded me of going to my Grandma Charlotte (Duttinger) Entz's apartment. Carolyn and I and my cousin Charlie used to go there to get babysat when I was around 4 or 5. She had a master room and a guest room, both with dressers full of neat trinkets, cosmetics, and perfumes. This box didn't look exactly like any of those, but it reminded me of that time. Grandma Charlotte is in a rehab in Brockport and I need to go see her. My Dad was close to her, talking to her almost every day and he would want me to. I haven't seen her in years. Her second husband Fritz was a bit odd and as he got older, he didn't like to go anywhere or have visitors. But know, suffering from dementia in another facility, my cousins and aunts and uncles have been slowly going to visit her.

This box also reminds me of my great-grandmother, Margaret Rose Falcheck, known as "GG" in our family. She was the heart of our family...everyone adored her. She even raised my Dad for a time when my grandmother was overwhelmed with her 8 kids. He adored her. She was a traditional grandma, living out in the country. We would go see her when I was little, eating strange polish meats I pretended to like and cookies and pies I LOVED. Her house was furnished with old furniture and neat as a pin. It was a two bedroom home built next to my great uncle's farmhouse after my great-grandfather died young, in his 50's. She died when I was in London in 1997. I remember getting the phone call, devastated. I can still hear her voice, thick with her Pennsylvania dialect though she had lived in the Rochester area for years.

Silly and weird that something so small can remind me of so much. It sits on my dresser, which is mostly bare because of my disgust with clutter, a reminder of these two woman, of my past and somehow, most of all my Dad. And it's his way of telling me, I think, to not forget his mother, to make sure I send her cards and photos, like he would want me to.