To most, this is just a piece of junk. Anyone looking through my utensil drawer would think I should have tossed it long ago. Afterall, it's no longer functional. It just takes up space! In my eyes it is beautiful. All of its imperfections are part of its story. Part of MY story. In 1984 I was moving into my very first apartment. I was about to have my own kitchen. I had nothing to put in it of course except for a set of dishes I purchased at a yard sale and some glasses Id collected from work lol. My mother took me to the store and bought me a set of pots & pans. She also reached into her own utensil drawer and took out this very spatula. It was one of her older ones. Its handle already had several battle wounds from being against the side of a skillet a little too long as she used it to prepare meals for my dad and me. Over the years I have used it to prepare meals for my own family. My children used it as they learned to cook. I
Almost a month to the day of my mothers' passing I had a dream. It wasn't the first time she had come to me in a dream, but to this point, I was the last. I was standing in the circle part of her driveway. There was a chill in the air. The grass was brown and there were no leaves on the trees. I was standing there...waiting. I was waiting for her to get there. The driver showed up, took her into the house and pulled away. rather than her wheelchair, he put her on the sofa where she used to sit and watch tv. He left the front door wide open. I could see her sitting in there by herself. She looked out at me and smiled. I said to myself, I'm going in until someone tells me I have to leave. She was alone. I curled up next to her on the couch, just like I did when I was little. She put her arm around me and held me like that for the longest time. It felt so good to curl up next to her like that again after all these years. After a while, she yawned. She looked do