Tag: generations

Build with care

Published on by katlyn_writesLeave a comment

I used my grandpa’s level for a recent home improvement project. It’s wooden, sanded smooth and stained a deep walnut brown. Or, maybe it’s worn smooth from use, from being pressed against walls and beams and the oils of my grandpa’s hands conditioning the wood, him wiping it clean before putting it away, I imagine always in the same spot. I never met my grandpa, so what I know of him is what I have heard from others. He went to the Colorado School of Mines, I think. He worked in the coal mines that hugged the Ohio-West Virginia border. He taught my father how to set and check trap lines. He took care of his tools. In my mind, my grandpa is a black-and-white photograph and made up of these details, statements rather than stories. 

Between my grandpa and me, my dad had the level. Shortly after Levi and I were married, my dad gave us a Craftsman bag filled with basic starter tools—extras he had that would come in handy while living in a first apartment. Everything was well cared for. My dad takes care of what’s his. It’s one of the things I admire most about him. Everything has a place, everything is cleaned, instruction manuals are catalogued. Were those values instilled in him by my grandpa? Or from my dad’s time in the Marine Corps? Or maybe, a bit of both?

I wonder what my grandpa would think about me using his level to build something. I was told he knew I was on the way. My mom was pregnant with me when he died. So, in a way, I feel like I would have been to him what he is to me: known, but not. I wonder if it would make him happy that I am using his tools to build a place where his great-grandchildren will hang their coats and school bags. 

I hope he would notice I am taking care to build something correctly. Measure twice and then twice again and then make the cut. I would guess he would probably think it is senseless that I plan to hang the level on one of the walls above this project. A reminder of the man I never knew, the one who came before my dad. More so, a reminder of some of the values and lessons my dad has taught me, that may have trickled down through generations: build with care. Take care of what is yours.

And that’s what this small home improvement project was really all about. Creating a place where my kids can stumble inside, weary from another day in the world, and shed their coats and bags. A first glimpse of home, a safe space where they can leave any expectations and undue weight at the door. I hope it smells like home when they walk in. Something baking in the oven. Scrubbed countertops. Clean laundry and cozy throws. Most of all, I hope when they step inside and walk through that back hall, they feel a home built with care, and know just how deeply they are cared for. 

Moms come in many forms

Published on by katlyn_writesLeave a comment
mother's hand and child's hand linked with a garden in the background.

Moms come in many forms. You don’t have to grow a baby in your womb or nurse one at your breast to be a mom. If you’ve loved a child, supported a child, taught a child, coached a child, believed in a child, mentored a child, picked one up when they were down, wiped tears, wrapped band-aids around tiny fingers, lost sleep at night over their well-being, found yourself in tears because it has seemed impossible to be everything they need—and still managed to get it done, you’re a mom. If you’ve shown compassion, put your needs second to another’s, and loved unconditionally you’re a mom.

We step into many roles in our lives and the thing that makes “Mom” the easiest is also what makes it the hardest: there is nothing that matters more than your kids.

The greatest mark one can make is in the impact on another life. Our own laughter and tears are temporary but those shared with the next generations become stories that are told and retold, memories that defy time. It is through mothering, parenting, grandparenting, coaching, loving, caring, mentoring, and shaping the life of another, that our own presence becomes eternal.

Happy Mother’s Day to everyone who has loved a child.

Sentimental Set

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Untitled design-3

I’m not an overly sentimental person. My family describes me as a purger and if something doesn’t serve a purpose or have a designated place it is swiftly and efficiently removed from the house—donated, pitched, passed along.

But there are odd items that seem to have a sentimental hold over me. Objects that anchor the family and act as a touchpoint. Our former kitchen table and chairs was one of these.

After it was gone I tried to find a picture of it, but I couldn’t locate one.

I could find lots of photographs that it appeared in, but none where it was the focus. This piece of furniture that three generations of families had gathered around. The chairs that were reglued, and reglued, and reglued. The sixth chair that was broken during a too-rowdy weekend. The chair that he draped a damp towel over the back of and its telling water marks. This table and chair set that bared nearly fifty years of stains and scars, each carrying with it its own story.

When I was growing up it was our eat-in kitchen table. The formal dining room set was reserved for things like Christmas and Easter, so this table was where we ate our family dinners most nights of the week.

Morning coffee and art projects. Macaroni and cheese and homework.

Place setting over the years ranged from paper plates, to my mom’s everyday Poppies on Blue pattern, to my grandmother’s china.

Candles blown out and prayers said. Weekday spaghetti dinners and grilled chicken on summer Sundays after church.

Just a piece of furniture? Or a constant? Something we could return to. Something that is there for us to gather around to celebrate the good and try to make sense of the bad.

It traveled with Levi and I from Columbus, Ohio, to St. Louis, Missouri, to Brentwood, Missouri, to Springfield, Illinois, to Aberdeen, South Dakota, and back to Ohio again.

Finally, we didn’t believe the chairs could take anymore glue. They wobbled and creaked with a simple slide in and slide out.

We needed a new set. Something sturdy. Something that we can hopefully have around for another three generations.

“Give it to someone who needs it,” my grandma and mom both said.

I did not go with Levi on the farewell drop-off to our local Goodwill. Yes, it is just a piece of furniture. An inanimate object. But it was ours. My grandparents, my parents, and then mine and Levi’s. It is where decades of birthday parties and family meals occurred. Where bewildering math problems and seemingly unsolvable life problems both found solutions. It was just an object, but it was so much more. It was the foundation that nourished generations of life and living.

 

All sisters eat dessert under the kitchen table right?
All sisters eat dessert under the kitchen table, right? Sharing laughs and dessert with my sister under the kitchen table.

 

 

*a version of this post originally appeared on former site, These Paths.