A large box arrived on our doorstep late last week. We weren't expecting anything, so it was a little surprising to receive such a large package.
E and I pushed the box into our living room. We both plopped on the floor consumed with the same eager excitement that anticipation brings. Carefully we opened the box to reveal 4 thickly wrapped packages. E helped to unravel the brown paper revealing 4s framed cross stitch pictures of locomotives.
Fortuntaly a card did accompany the gifts, otherwise I would still be baffled as to what I had received. In the neatly typed letter my grandmother explained that she has sent me these four cross-stitch pictures of trains that she had made back when she was a young girl in the 30's.
She explained that during her summers she and her family would travel to their property in New Jersey. They had no electricty, no indoor plumbing and bunches of chickens. She and her sister would spend their days playing games, drawing and learning to cross-stitch.
The trains, she said, were the first set of cross stitch she had ever completed. Each one explores a different type of stitch.
E and I looked upon each framed picture with a hint of wonderment and that feeling you get when you are handling something older than you, but some how very much connected to who you are.
In between those lines and threads I could almost picture my young grandmother enjoying the process of pushing a needle through and pulling the thread out to create these precious pictures.
It suddenly made sense why, on one of my vacations East as a child, my grandmother had helped me spend one of my summers learning to cross stitch.
I would love to hear what connects you to your past, family and history. Please feel free to share.
