Past Treasures

An everyday dress hangs in the cobweb-shrouded attic, draped on a padded dressmaker’s form. It belonged to a grandmother, a few greats removed. A dress with the high- buttoned collar and sleeves that flirt with the notion of covering the entire hand. It has a straight, ankle-length skirt made from a coarse material, plain but serviceable and no nonsense, just like the woman who wore it as she helped carve a life from nothing.

Her husband's navy blue, button-on suspenders lie on a box nearby. It was said he only took them off to sleep. Near evening time, they hung loosely, draped along the sides of his thighs. When standing by the pot-bellied stove at the mercantile, jawing with cronies, he hooked his thumbs behind those straps; alternately pulling at them, and drumming his fingers along the side of his chest as he emphasized a point he made.

Great-Grandpa’s tools are stacked in the corner. A rusted two-man saw, axe, and sickle. The old grind stone stands ready for someone to turn the crank and sharpen the plow blades. That is, if the leather harness has not rotted through with age and can still be used on old swaybacked Bessie, his favorite mule.

The dressing table he made for the love of his life sits beneath the small cracked window. The ornate mirror is dull and worn in spots. The little stool that once had a

flowered cushion sits lopsided, one leg gnawed through by some critter who took up residence in this dark musty room. Grandma once sat here and brushed her long hair to braid for sleep; one hundred strokes of the tapestry-backed hairbrush.

Tucked back under the eaves, sits the cedar hope chest of a long-passed spinster aunt. Fine crocheted doilies, embroidered lace-trimmed linens, and a set of unused chipped dishes, all for the house that she never made a home. Peeking from the dark bottom is a white nightgown with intricate stitching on the bodice, sewed lovingly with thoughts of a spouse she never took to her bed. Wrapped in faded yellow paper are tiny gowns, booties and bonnets for babies never to be born. Those babies never played with this storehouse, this treasure trove of toys.

A braided jump rope made of real rope with the loops knotted by hand. What did little girls sing about while jumping, before Cinderella went upstairs to kiss her fellow? A carved boat that may or may not have actually floated in the creek. A wooden block truck on which the wheels never rolled, but were pushed diligently by a grubby little hand anyway. The homemade doll with yarn hair and button eyes created from scraps of material and stuffed with mattress ticking.

The far away voices of children long gone, singing school yard songs, as they danced on the old wooden floor over in the corner, where Grandma and Grandpa now sit. Her white head rests on his slumped shoulder. Their tears have left muddy streaks in the dust that settled on their wrinkled cheeks. The twinkle in his eye has almost gone out. Her smile is fading in the last light of the dying day, seeping through chinks in the wall.

They may be old and in need of care, but they are not disposable, merely in need of repair. They are not dead yet. They have love to share. Wisdom to pass to a new generation. The truth to teach of simple lives fulfilled. Yet there they sit, already relegated to the realm of past treasures.

(First published in Epiphany Magazine)