{"id":21,"date":"2012-12-16T00:22:00","date_gmt":"2012-12-16T00:22:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nosmallthing.net\/main\/?p=21"},"modified":"2021-05-08T14:23:04","modified_gmt":"2021-05-08T14:23:04","slug":"my-mothers-china","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nosmallthing.net\/main\/my-mothers-china\/","title":{"rendered":"My Mother’s China"},"content":{"rendered":"
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With the holidays coming up fast, over the past few days I started thinking about hosting my family\u2019s Christmas Eve dinner. I found myself becoming obsessed with an unexpected thought, and I added a mission<\/i><\/b> to my holiday to do<\/i><\/b><\/b> list.<\/p>\n

I had to get my mother\u2019s china.<\/p>\n

My mother passed away in April of 2011. In October of that year, my sister and I sold her condo. Before we turned over the keys, we sorted through clothes and jewelry that accumulated over nearly ninety years, each of us claiming some pieces and boxing up other things for different charity donations. Since I did not have much storage space in the apartment where I was living, I considered myself lucky to be able to store some boxes in my friend Nancy\u2019s basement.<\/p>\n

My mother\u2019s china was part of her legacy to me. Twelve place settings of Bavarian (Tirschenreuth) china \u2013 dinner plates, salad plates, bread plates, dessert plates, soup bowls, fruit bowls, cups with painted rims and delicate curved handles, and serving pieces for an unimaginable feast — were painstakingly wrapped and boxed by Barb and Tina, my mother\u2019s cleaning lady, and me over a year ago. The set had been sitting in Nancy\u2019s basement in Riverside waiting for me to have a permanent home for them. I moved last May, but I didn\u2019t think much about reclaiming these boxes until now. And now, it felt urgent that I do so.<\/p>\n

I called Nancy. She wasn\u2019t planning on being home, but her boyfriend Jim could let me in. I canceled all other plans for Thursday and drove out to Riverside. I probably spent the first fifteen minutes staring numbly at the few stacked boxes in one corner of her basement. I cut through the packing tape on the top of each box, hoping that a simple peek inside would reassure me that I had found what I was looking for, but only newspaper and other packing materials were visible, and I was not about to unwrap each item.<\/p>\n

My mother\u2019s belongings included glassware, a barely used Cuisinart, and a kitschy bright orange set of espresso cups. Two medium-sized boxes seemed to contain the porcelain crockery I came for. There is no way, I thought, that my mother\u2019s monster set of tableware could be contained in so few boxes; lightweight boxes at that. I called my sister by cell phone from the stairway to Nancy\u2019s cellar. \u201cDo you think you might have some of mom\u2019s china in your basement?\u201d I asked. She looked where she stored her collection of boxes from our mother\u2019s and called me back to say no. She had no boxes of our mother\u2019s china. We asked each other, \u201cDo you think the movers lost any boxes?\u201d<\/p>\n

At this point, there would have been no way to retrieve anything from the moving company. After all, the move took place over a year ago. I finished loading my car and drove home. As I drove home, I found myself entertaining unhappy, but very familiar, thoughts. My mother had not given me the attention and affection I craved. How fitting, I thought, that the one thing I wanted from her collection of possessions was something that I could only have in an incomplete state.<\/p>\n

Once home, I started unwrapping the individual pieces, spreading them out on my dining room table. I couldn\u2019t believe it. How could so much wrapped china have fit into so few boxes? Except for having only eleven dessert plates, a casualty from a cousin\u2019s club gathering most likely, my table ended up holding twelve of every piece plus gravy boats, the sugar bowl and creamer, a soup tureen and lid, and two large serving platters. Everything I could think of was here.<\/p>\n

And this made me think about my middle-aged life, where I am at today. I thought about my hurts and disappointments, my challenges, my burdens and slights — real or imagined. I turned out all right, didn\u2019t I? My mother may not have given me everything I wanted, but I grew up. I formed relationships. I have contributed to the lives of others.<\/p>\n

What she gave me was complete enough<\/i>. Like my mind\u2019s focus during my ride home from Riverside, all too often, I have chosen to place my attention on what I thought to be missing.<\/p>\n

Being able to drop expectations of disappointment and see the fullness and completeness of things as they are is no small thing.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With the holidays coming up fast, over the past few days I started thinking about…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","grateful-dozen-surprise"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nMy Mother's China – No Small Thing<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/nosmallthing.net\/main\/my-mothers-china\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" 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