My poor husband has been the perpetrator of a few of those.
One that stands out in my memory happened nearly 20 years ago at Christmastime.
It seems like yesterday.
When my grandfather, my mother's father, died, I received my grandma's pots and pans, everyday dishes, and various kitchen tools. I had just moved into an apartment off campus and needed all those items.
I didn't give them much thought at the time, as I didn't really cook much beyond heating up the occasional can of Campbell's WonTon soup. That was my air-popped popcorn and diet Kool-Aid phase. It's a wonder I survived.
Anyhoo, two short years later I was married and my homemaking instincts kicked in, at least the cooking ones. I discovered a love of cooking that's stayed with me all these years.
And that's when I began to appreciate my grandmother's things. Not so much the pots and pans, but her utensils, and most especially her rolling pin.
Now, I am the last grandchild on both sides of my family - and by a good many years. My memories of my Grandma Stutelberg (heritage hint) are few and definitely not particularly happy ones. It's not as if I watched her makes pies nor do I remember ever having eaten a pie she made.
Nevertheless, this rolling pin belonged to someone important to me. It was part of my heritage. When I used the rolling pin I imagined what it must have been like when my mother was a little girl in the 1930s. My rolling pin connected me to the past in a tangible way.
As my life evolved and I had children, I became an avid pie-maker. Each time I rolled out the dough I was honoring past women and the important work of feeding the family.
It was Christmas of 1994, I believe, when the incident occurred.
My husband has always been somewhat lacking in gift-giving acumen. It's not because he doesn't care, but more because he expresses his love differently. While I put great stock in a well-thought-out, carefully-chosen gift as an expression of love, he shows me he loves me by his everyday actions. He always has.
With age, comes wisdom and I now have a hefty dose of both.But 20 years ago?
Not so much.
I still can't imagine what thoughts ran through his head that holiday season. But for some reason, he decided I needed a new rolling pin. After all, the one I had was old, wasn't it? I liked to cook, so surely this would be a good gift.
You see now where this is going, don't you?
Christmas morning I eagerly opened my gift and was surprised (and a little dismayed) by the rolling pin, but I tried to hide my true feelings.
It wasn't until later when putting the new tool away that I discovered the true horror of that gift.
"Honey, where's my old rolling pin?"
"I threw it out."
"I'd like to keep it, I think. Could you get it out of the trash?"
My husband has never planned in advance for any holiday. Each year I remind him that like my birthday, Christmas falls on the same day every year. But somehow, that year, he planned.
Yes, the new rolling pin was apparently a "planned" gift.
He had bought it enough ahead of that day of infamy that he had time to not only throw out my old, beloved rolling pin, but for the garbage trucks to take it away.
Forever.
Gone.
I'd like to say that I handled it well.
I didn't.
After a fair amount of ranting and raving and profuse apologies on his part, the incident became a part of our past. After a while, I even forgave him.
But I never forgot.
Several years after that I found an old rolling pin in a dusty antique shop.
I had to have it.
I've never liked that "new" rolling pin; it never felt right.
But this new-old rolling pin was almost like Grandma's.
Perhaps someday it will find its own way into a dusty shop for some young wife and mother to spy.
I hope she imagines a happy history for it.
What of my wonderful, old rolling pin?
That, I hope, will pass from myself to one of my daughters and beyond.
For it has been used with love for decades by me - and perhaps a half a century by someone else - to lovingly craft pies and cookies for her family.
Even for her gift-challenged husband.
5 comments:
I've met people who do not value old things, too. That was painful to read, but what a nice ending! My grandmother collected rolling pins and had them hanging from the soffit. I wonder they are now.
It was painful to live, too!!
My house is full of old things, but the ones I love the most are the ones I can still use.
Wouldn't it be great if you could find one of those old rolling pins??
Karen, I so relate because I have schlepped my own grandmothers rolling pin around or years. I can imagine how you reacted! I think my husband knows better but this post is a reminder to make sure;)
My heart leapt into my throat when I read the garbage had taken it away. How hurt I was reading it! My grandmother's rolling pin is such a part of me! Horrors!
Part of me that would like to remarry wonders sometimes if my treasured things would be looked upon as old junk. I just did a rolling pin post. Or, it is in draft.
Men don't understand the emotion around kitchen utensils. Your husband is as clueless as mine on gifts and birthdays. We married the day after Thanksgiving, so he could not understand for the 14 years we were married that Thanksgiving was a moveable feast. We had bunches of fights over that...and a few cold shoulders!
Linda, it never hurts to remind them!
And Practical (Linda) - fortunately my husband is a slow, but steady learner! (lol) He'll never again throw anything of mine away without first asking! And now my daughters help him with gift selection/holidays!
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