We attended a very important wedding last week. The best friend of our older daughter who passed away got married. Our daughter would've been 20 in June and this young woman will be turning that age in October. It was a lovely wedding, she was stunningly beautiful and although watching her walk down the aisle tugged at my heart strings I was not as emotional as I thought I would be. We did however, want to give this young woman and her new husband something extremely special, something that would reflect the very dear place she has in our hearts.
I did go to several stores searching for the perfect gift but I realized nothing would really fill the bill. Because of her relationship with our daughter we really wanted to give her something that was a family legacy or inheritance. And then I thought back 26 years and realized the idea for the perfect gift was under our nose the whole time.
When my husband and I got married we were given a very unique gift and along with it a newspaper article explaining the gift. I lost that original article years ago so decided to write a story based on our personal experience that has a similar flavour to what I remember. I placed this story in with the gift.
The Gaudy Towel – A Family Legacy & Inheritance
At one of the showers held before our wedding my fiancée handed me one of the carefully wrapped gifts. I tore off the paper to find a rather large and shockingly bright purple towel. I was more than a little perplexed and I suspect that I had a rather horrified look on my face as I stared in disbelief at this particular endowment. Purple was definitely not an “in” colour at that time and what was even more confusing was that this had come from a well-respected family friend who knew my green and cream bathroom decorating plans. I was quite frankly horrified at her lack of taste but smiled and nodded my thanks. She looked at me across the room and smiled knowingly, “Don’t worry you’ll find a use for it.” I truly thought that she had gone off her rocker.
The towel was moved with the rest of our shower and wedding gifts into our new apartment. I put the bright monstrosity on the bottom of the linen closet underneath all of my nice new plush matching bath sheets. I even remember feeling a little hurt that my friend could have miscalculated so badly in her choice of a gift.
Two months later my husband got up in the middle of the night, went to the washroom and flushed the toilet. It started to overflow and before he could stop it some of the water cascaded onto the bathroom floor. His yelling for me to get a towel brought me out of my sleep and I bounded up out of our warm bed and yanked open the linen closet. The thought of using one of my gorgeous new towels to sop up the mess was nauseating. Then I remembered the purple towel.
It did the job it was needed for very effectively and I remember saying to my husband rather sarcastically that my friend would have been horrified it she had known what we had used her “precious” towel for. The next day I thought about tossing the hideous thing out altogether but somehow it found its way to the washing machine and back into the bottom of the linen closet.
The next time I thought of the purple towel was when the cat threw up a hairball and we were all out of paper towels. The mess was cleaned up easily and I again thought about my friend. The towel got washed and was put back into the bottom of the closet. Over the next few years it made its appearance when we washed and buffed the car, served as a blanket on the beach and generally always proved to be around whenever there was a messy emergency of some kind. Each time we used it I thought of my friend.
After we had children we found many more uses for the gaudy towel. Always ready and willing, it wiped up accidents and messes, got set on the back seat of the car when bathing suits had wet sandy bums, dried wet dogs and was used as a hobo sack on a stick for dress up. No longer a screaming bright colour by this time, our towel began to look more like an old wrinkled grape that suffered from at least one bleach spot and a couple of dark stains. Around this time I began to think that there might be something really special about this unusual gift. So many of the other wedding presents we had received sat in the back of cupboards and if you asked me who gave us something I couldn’t have told you. Our gaudy towel however was always handy and in use, always in “bad” style, and it never failed to make me think of my friend. This was especially important because by that time she had passed away.
When we hosted our own twenty-fifth wedding anniversary dinner and dance I packed up our now rather threadbare and thin faded purple friend into the car along with the paper plates and other items for the party. I knew that I could depend on it should it be needed. Several months later the towel got its first hole and then another appeared and another so I finally tore the cloth into pieces and put it into the rag bag for use when painting or cleaning.
The next time we had a large spill I stood in front of the linen closet and did not know what to do, which towel to grab. In the end I used the oldest towel I could find but it just wasn’t the same and I swear it didn’t work as well as our old faithful companion had. Later that day I determined to set out and acquire another resident for our linen closet, something really hideous to take the place of our friend’s precious gift. My search took some time but I was finally successful in finding a rather grotesque multi-coloured towel that didn’t match anything that we had. It brought me the greatest pleasure to fold this bright new eyesore and put it under all of the plush matching bath sheets and towels.
Today I know and understand the true value of the simple gift that we were bestowed with. It may have only been a piece of cloth but it was filled with wisdom and love. Truly it was a legacy that kept on giving and giving. So today on your wedding day we want to pass on this special family inheritance and story on to you.
Within this wrapping you will find a new specially selected gaudy towel. May it be a colour and design that is horrendously ugly to you and we hope that it does not match anything you have or like. May it serve you well and be there for you whenever you need it. May you always remember that woven into the fabric is the love and special place we hold for you in our hearts.
Salynne ©2009
Saturday, September 19, 2009
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Four Line Friday Pose - Do you Remember?
Four Line Friday Pose from Marc's Blog.
Do you Remember?
September 11, 2001
Our eight year old daughter came into the bedroom and said, “Daddy, there’s something wrong with the TV, the same thing is on every channel.” My husband got up and I laid there half asleep. I jumped out of bed and walked to the living room when I heard, “If you’re just joining us we are seeing the World Trade Center and it appears that a plane has crashed into the building.” As the horror before us unfolded over the next hours I felt that I should cry but instead I could only sit there numb, mesmerized by shocking disbelief.
Salynne ©2009
Do you Remember?
September 11, 2001
Our eight year old daughter came into the bedroom and said, “Daddy, there’s something wrong with the TV, the same thing is on every channel.” My husband got up and I laid there half asleep. I jumped out of bed and walked to the living room when I heard, “If you’re just joining us we are seeing the World Trade Center and it appears that a plane has crashed into the building.” As the horror before us unfolded over the next hours I felt that I should cry but instead I could only sit there numb, mesmerized by shocking disbelief.
Salynne ©2009
Friday, September 11, 2009
Daily Writing Practice - The Deadbeat
Thanks again to Marc for my inspiration today:
http://daily-writing.blogspot.com/
Alrighty, today I'm going to provide you with the first line of your poem or prose and then you get to take it from there. Sound good?Okay, here it is: The streets were thick with fog...Go!
The Deadbeat
The streets were thick with fog and Phineas wandered aimlessly. He drew his thin wool coat closer and his gnarled arthritic hand tried to hold the collar closed. Stupid, crap thumb that couldn’t bend to hold anything, bugger arthritis, and now he was faced with this confounded damp mist. None of it made life any easier.
It was a typical English side street lined with brick row houses and if he squinted he could make out a succession of off–duty black taxi’s sitting at the curb. It was early in the morning before the majority of people got up but it really could have been any time of day because the pea soup murk imprisoned any chance the sun had to proliferate its rays. The roads were empty and the city was relatively quiet although Phineas could hear the murmur of traffic from one of the major arteries several blocks away. His eyes scanned the pavement below and watched his own black shabby shoes taking step after step. He looked up.
The glare of the computer screen burned his eyes. The typed words on the paper captured what he had been seeing in the world that inhabited his head this morning. It was now 4:30 am and Phineas realized he’d been sitting at the computer for at least an hour. His body clock had gone out of whack several weeks ago and it seemed that he was waking up every morning around 3 o’clock. Sometimes he was able to turn over and go back to sleep, other times when he could not settle he got up so as not to disturb his wife and went downstairs to the office to do work or to write.
This morning when he’d finally gotten up after tossing and turning for what felt like hours he decided he was going to start a novel. It would be great; he had the outline, plot and characters in his head. He’d obviously been writing and typing for some time, but where had the time gone? Had he been walking the foggy street for all of that time? Had he drifted off to sleep sitting in front of the computer and dreamed what he had seen. He closed his eyes and put his fingers onto the keyboard.
When he opened his eyes again the fog was still there and he was continuing to walk down the middle of the deserted street. His footsteps did not echo but each stride created a dull thud that was swallowed by the weight of the grey mist. Inside of his jacket the newspapers that were carefully folded and packed to stave off some of the frigid damp that would irritate the rheumatism in his left shoulder shifted slightly.
A sudden searing pain stabbed him in the chest and he felt his left arm go limp and numb. What was going on? Staggering slightly Phineas put his right hand onto the boot of one of the cabs on the side of the road. He needed to find a place to sit down and rest. Yes, rest would be a good thing. He tried to kneel down slowly but his arm gave way and his knees slammed into the edge of the sidewalk and he toppled forward. Fortunately, his reflexes seemed to kick in and at least he got his gnarled hands down in front of him. After his body slammed into the pavement his head made a rather slow gentle decent to the smooth, cold hard cement. His eyes closed and he lay still. The crushing pain in his chest was now like a vice grip and his breath came in short gasps.
Phineas opened his eyes. The computer screened glowed, his fingers still sat on the keyboard. He read the words on the page. “The crushing pain in his chest was now like a vice grip and his breath came in short gasps.” His eyes moved to look around the office but his hands remained motionless; he was looking out of his eyeballs but it was a physical impossibility to get his limbs to move. He was imprisoned by his body.
The gripping agony in his chest throbbed rhythmically; he could hear an erratic heartbeat in his ears. He looked at his lifeless numb right arm and started to feel a rising sense of panic. What’s going on? Am I having heart failure or what? This doesn't make sense, how can I be dying? It’s my character that is dying, not me.
He shut his eyes to block out the light and felt the damp cool surface of the concrete on his cheek. Looks like I’m snookered. I’m homeless, alone, and I’m going to die right here on the street. Well, what did it matter really? After he’d lost his job, his wife & family and then his apartment he’d been going from shelter to shelter and had only a fortnight ago found a cardboard box which he dragged to the atrium of a local church. He was rather surprised to have woken these past mornings as he fully expected that he would become just another statistical displaced person who died from hypothermia.
A heart attack was not something he’d counted on but everybody had to go sometime and he guessed it was his time. It would only be a few minutes now, he calculated, before his heart would cease its crazy, irregular palpitations and everything would stop. Nothing would matter soon; not the age of his body, the damp, the cold, the trembling in his hands or the holes in soles of his shoes. He felt his consciousness slipping and the bright light of the computer hurt his eyes. Slowly everything started going black whether his eyes were open or not.
The last thing Phineas heard was a piece of machinery coming to life. Now, was that the sound of one of the taxi’s starting or the cooling fan of a computer? Then again, did it matter?
Salynne ©2009
http://daily-writing.blogspot.com/
Alrighty, today I'm going to provide you with the first line of your poem or prose and then you get to take it from there. Sound good?Okay, here it is: The streets were thick with fog...Go!
The Deadbeat
The streets were thick with fog and Phineas wandered aimlessly. He drew his thin wool coat closer and his gnarled arthritic hand tried to hold the collar closed. Stupid, crap thumb that couldn’t bend to hold anything, bugger arthritis, and now he was faced with this confounded damp mist. None of it made life any easier.
It was a typical English side street lined with brick row houses and if he squinted he could make out a succession of off–duty black taxi’s sitting at the curb. It was early in the morning before the majority of people got up but it really could have been any time of day because the pea soup murk imprisoned any chance the sun had to proliferate its rays. The roads were empty and the city was relatively quiet although Phineas could hear the murmur of traffic from one of the major arteries several blocks away. His eyes scanned the pavement below and watched his own black shabby shoes taking step after step. He looked up.
The glare of the computer screen burned his eyes. The typed words on the paper captured what he had been seeing in the world that inhabited his head this morning. It was now 4:30 am and Phineas realized he’d been sitting at the computer for at least an hour. His body clock had gone out of whack several weeks ago and it seemed that he was waking up every morning around 3 o’clock. Sometimes he was able to turn over and go back to sleep, other times when he could not settle he got up so as not to disturb his wife and went downstairs to the office to do work or to write.
This morning when he’d finally gotten up after tossing and turning for what felt like hours he decided he was going to start a novel. It would be great; he had the outline, plot and characters in his head. He’d obviously been writing and typing for some time, but where had the time gone? Had he been walking the foggy street for all of that time? Had he drifted off to sleep sitting in front of the computer and dreamed what he had seen. He closed his eyes and put his fingers onto the keyboard.
When he opened his eyes again the fog was still there and he was continuing to walk down the middle of the deserted street. His footsteps did not echo but each stride created a dull thud that was swallowed by the weight of the grey mist. Inside of his jacket the newspapers that were carefully folded and packed to stave off some of the frigid damp that would irritate the rheumatism in his left shoulder shifted slightly.
A sudden searing pain stabbed him in the chest and he felt his left arm go limp and numb. What was going on? Staggering slightly Phineas put his right hand onto the boot of one of the cabs on the side of the road. He needed to find a place to sit down and rest. Yes, rest would be a good thing. He tried to kneel down slowly but his arm gave way and his knees slammed into the edge of the sidewalk and he toppled forward. Fortunately, his reflexes seemed to kick in and at least he got his gnarled hands down in front of him. After his body slammed into the pavement his head made a rather slow gentle decent to the smooth, cold hard cement. His eyes closed and he lay still. The crushing pain in his chest was now like a vice grip and his breath came in short gasps.
Phineas opened his eyes. The computer screened glowed, his fingers still sat on the keyboard. He read the words on the page. “The crushing pain in his chest was now like a vice grip and his breath came in short gasps.” His eyes moved to look around the office but his hands remained motionless; he was looking out of his eyeballs but it was a physical impossibility to get his limbs to move. He was imprisoned by his body.
The gripping agony in his chest throbbed rhythmically; he could hear an erratic heartbeat in his ears. He looked at his lifeless numb right arm and started to feel a rising sense of panic. What’s going on? Am I having heart failure or what? This doesn't make sense, how can I be dying? It’s my character that is dying, not me.
He shut his eyes to block out the light and felt the damp cool surface of the concrete on his cheek. Looks like I’m snookered. I’m homeless, alone, and I’m going to die right here on the street. Well, what did it matter really? After he’d lost his job, his wife & family and then his apartment he’d been going from shelter to shelter and had only a fortnight ago found a cardboard box which he dragged to the atrium of a local church. He was rather surprised to have woken these past mornings as he fully expected that he would become just another statistical displaced person who died from hypothermia.
A heart attack was not something he’d counted on but everybody had to go sometime and he guessed it was his time. It would only be a few minutes now, he calculated, before his heart would cease its crazy, irregular palpitations and everything would stop. Nothing would matter soon; not the age of his body, the damp, the cold, the trembling in his hands or the holes in soles of his shoes. He felt his consciousness slipping and the bright light of the computer hurt his eyes. Slowly everything started going black whether his eyes were open or not.
The last thing Phineas heard was a piece of machinery coming to life. Now, was that the sound of one of the taxi’s starting or the cooling fan of a computer? Then again, did it matter?
Salynne ©2009
Monday, September 7, 2009
Art, An Extraordinary Young Woman & Make-A-Wish
I am very privileged to know an extraordinary young woman and talented artist named Chelsey Bigland. Please check out the upcoming Auction of her work at the Douglas Reynolds Gallery in Vancouver. All proceeds benefit the Make-A-Wish Foundation.
Link: http://chelseybigland.weebly.com/index.html
For Immediate Release:
September 2009
17 year old Chelsey Bigland is a young, emerging artist who uses her creative talent to cope with cancer. Diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin’s Lymphoma in July 2008, Chelsey’s journey through cancer has been difficult at times. Using her artwork as a coping mechanism has allowed her an escape from the daily rigors of this awful disease into a place of endless possibility.
In the spring of 2009, Chelsey was granted a wish through the Make-A-Wish Foundation. The goal of Make-A-Wish is to allow children facing a life-threatening illness and opportunity to focus on something more positive, thus alleviating some of the stress of the illness. For her wish, Chelsey received a digital camera, Adobe Photoshop and a drawing tablet, giving her more tools to pursue her artistic endeavors.
Chelsey specializes in acrylic paintings, digital drawing and photography. Chelsey wanted to use her artistic talent to help Make-A-Wish raise funds and the idea of auctioning off a selection of her work is now a reality. The auction will be presented at the Douglas Reynolds Gallery (2335 Granville Street) on Thursday, October 15, 2009 from 6-8pm. Tickets are $25 each and are available for purchase at the door or by calling the Make-A-Wish office.
"When I paint, I totally lose myself in the creative process....it makes me feel better. Knowing that my artwork will be seen by others and used to raise money for Make-A-Wish makes me feel great that I can give back in some way."
The Make-A-Wish Foundation is dedicated to granting the heartfelt wishes of children 3-17 who are battling a life-threatening illness. For over 25 years, Make-A-Wish has made over 1,200 wishes come true in BC with 120 expected to be granted this year. Wishes fall into four categories: I wish to go, I wish to have, I wish to meet, I wish to be. www.makeawishbc.ca
For more information:
Kim Heron
Director of Development
Make-A-Wish BC & Yukon
Tel: 604-688-7944
Cell: 604-762-5802
Please do check it out. Not only is Chelsey's art incredible but Make-A-Wish is a very worthy organization. And it may be of interest to you that of the 1,200 wishes that they have made come true over the past 25 years, one of them was the wish of our daughter Brenna for a dog to keep her company as she watched her new TV and videos. Now I have two very big reasons to carry a soft spot in my heart for this group.
Salynne ©2009
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