Gratitude Friday: The Rose China...

My grandmother loved tea sets.  If my often rather spotty memory serves correctly, she had three sets on display on her book shelves in her great room.  

Grandmother did not have much.  When I was a kid, her house caught on fire and most of it burned to the ground.  They had to rebuild and when they did, they were able to add on a little to the tiny-even-to-a-child house.  

The house burning down was simply another event in a life marked with a good deal of suffering.  Family lore tells of a very pregnant-with-my-mom woman packing up everything she owned and heading home to Alexander City, AL from Alaska after her marriage failed.  No idea why they were in Alaska.  No idea what ended the marriage.  She never talked about it.  And she liked it that way.

Her second husband, my grandfather, was a genius who lived life jumping from one dead end job to a get rich quick scheme and back to another dead end job.  One family member once referred to him as the original Under Achiever.  Most of those mediocre jobs he worked only half-heartedly anyway.  The drinking kinda got in the way.

Grandmother's third child died at the precious age of eight from a brain tumor.  She was diagnosed only after she started walking sideways and falling down.  

My mom had just gotten married when Natalie was diagnosed.  

After her death, I hear, Grandmother and Granddaddy changed.

I cannot imagine the grief.  My throat feels tight just thinking about losing a child.  

So maybe the drinking started before his daughter died but maybe it was in response to it.  I don't really know for sure.  

Grandmother buried herself in romance novels...thousands of them...and kept busy taking care of the female inmates she taught at Julia Tutwiler Prison in Alabama.  The women learned the basics in her classroom.  Reading and writing.  

My grandmother's life had, in a way, burned down around her.  And her time was spent teaching other women who's lives had also been left in ashes outside of those prison walls.

Grandmother died when I was a junior in high school.  She was young but I am not positive of her age.  Maybe 64 or so.  The older I get, the younger that gets.  She fought breast cancer five years earlier but it returned.  In her bones.  And pretty much everywhere else.  

That second time, she decided not to fight.  The cancer won.  But really, she was the one who came out victorious because she was reunited with her daughter in heaven.  

Sometimes when I'm missing my embabies, I like to picture them with Grandmother and Natalie in heaven.  Ten grandchildren.  Grandmother's loving that.  All of them growing, laughing, dancing...a joyous life none of them ever lived on this earth.

The three tea sets remained on those book shelves in that great room until my granddaddy died three years later from his own battle with cancer.  Then one set each was sent to my mom, my uncle and me.  

I got the Rose set.  At least that's what I call it.  Not sure what the actual name of the set is.  It's not expensive.  On occasion I find a few pieces of it in thrift stores or antique shops.  But, believe me, I have plenty of it.  Almost two full sets.  One mini set, like a child's tea set size and one adult size.  Plenty.

Aubrey Kate has one plate on her wall in her vintage inspired room.  One day, when she's old enough, I am looking forward to sharing the child's tea set with her. 

I hung one serving platter on our dining room wall.  I believe there are three in the set.  Plenty.

And then Wednesday, for the first time since I received the set, I used the adult set to serve brunch to my women's bible study group.

As I was prepping and pulling each piece down from the cabinet over the fridge, I couldn't help but think about Grandmother and her reason for owning tea sets she never used.  Did she hope one day she'd be able to use them as a hostess?  Did having something pretty and delicate out where she could see it every day give her some beauty in the ashes all around her?  Where did she find the money to buy each set?  And did the purchase of them coordinate with a specific event in her life?  

Questions maybe my mom has the answers to but maybe not.  Grandmother simply did not discuss such things with me.  Being that I was just a child.  Maybe she would have when I got older.  Or maybe I would have been sassy enough to ask her straight out.  

When I close my eyes, I can see that great room.  The wall of bookshelves.  The two recliners, one for each of my grandparents.  And those three tea sets up high on the top.  Up above the ashes of their lives below.  

This week I watched some wonderful women eating off Grandmother's china.  Smiled when they complimented me on the set.  Said a silly little prayer of thanks for Grandmother and her china.  Grateful she's still here, even just in the tiny roses on the gold trimmed tea cups.  

A tea set.  A simple, inexpensive, delicate, rose tea set.  A reminder of a strong women.  A reminder that not all is healed in this world.  Not all is solved.  But our hope and faith lies in our Savior who offers eternal healing and answers.  Honestly, I can't wait to get there.  I'm gonna hug my grandmother and tell her about every single time I used her precious tea set. 

The beauty in her ashes lives on.

What beauty has God shown you, taught you, guided you to in the middle of your own ashes?