I have received some splendid thinking-of-you gifts lately and it’s not my birthday or anything.
A paper bookmark sits on my desk with each letter of the word “Grandma” drawn in a different color. It is a large bookmark with zigzag ends and a small heart cut out of the middle. You slip the corner of the page you want to bookmark into the heart.
Genius, right?
Last week I received a new pillow. The pillow is pale pink with a tiny green and white floral print and measures about 10 inches by 10 inches. Each seam is sewn straight as a ruler. We also have homemade pillows made by grands in a bright sunflower fabric and a bold camera print. We didn’t know we needed more pillows, but this was made with love, so you can bet we’ll find a place for it. It will be a prominent place because there are pillows and then there are pillows.
Next to family pictures sitting on our bedroom dresser are several small rocks and a dried black walnut that were gifted to me. These treasures were not parted with casually. They were mined from the earth with grubby hands and loving hearts.
A letter sent for no special reason arrived the other day with a sweet note inside. A paper star also fell from the envelope. It is blue with a red heart in the middle with the letter G written in the center of the heart. I can pin the star with a “G” on my shirt.
I imagine this will be akin to wearing one of those medic alert buttons, only my paper star doesn’t connect to first responder services.
Thoughtful. Very thoughtful.
Sometimes I receive short stories or newsy letters and remind the authors that this is exactly how many famous authors got their start. Maybe.
A few weeks ago, the doorbell rang and there stood a boy, beaming from ear to ear, holding a shoe bouquet of wildflowers. Cheerful black-eyed Susans, wild geranium and Virginia mountain mint, all tucked into a shoe. A worn, dirty, mud-caked, tennis shoe. It was a beautiful award-winning bouquet. Best in Shoe.
The boy also had an old blue Ball jar that he had discovered digging near an old cabin on their property and gave that to me as well. Plus, he wanted his mud-caked shoe back. It was a good trade.
If you see a woman with colorful pillows under one arm, a book with a bookmark hanging from it tucked under the other, assorted artwork, small rocks, a dried black walnut, a wilted wildflower bouquet in a blue Ball jar in her hands, and a paper star with a “G” pinned to her shirt, please point me out to others and say, “There goes the richest woman in the world.”