Blue Glass

I’ve been thinking about blue glass a lot lately. I really can’t help it. A six-foot tall display cabinet full of blue glass has taken up residence in my living room, catching my attention every day. And I am blessed by the daily reminders it provides.

My grandmother, Joy, who I called Gami, loved the color blue. I’m not sure if she was inspired by the blue of the sky, or the blue bird of happiness, or if she was simply wired to love blue. She was always dressed in blue – not always head-to-toe, but there was always blue in her outfit. If she had a say in color choice – from clothes to carpet to furniture to wallpaper – there would be some shade of blue.

Somewhere along the way Gami started collecting blue glass. Not expensive nor necessarily artistic pieces, just any blue glass. Bottles, vases, jars, and various trinkets accumulated in her collection. Her wide circle of family and friends would see a blue glass trinket and be reminded not only of Joy, but of the circle they were a part of because of her. Soon family and friends started bringing her pieces from the finest garage sales and flea markets in the land. They were messages that said “I saw this thing, and it made me think of you”. Each gift – an elephant, a medicine bottle, a chicken, an after-shave bottle shaped like a car – each a simple token of appreciation for her circle of love.

After Gami passed away, my parents, aunts, siblings, cousins, and the multitude of great-grandchildren each took special pieces, pieces which remind us of Joy and of our connection to each other. Yet that left the display cabinet and most of the collection without a home. It’s big, it takes up a lot of space, and none of the local family had room to display it, so it stayed in storage for a while. But when the time came this year to empty the storage a decision had to be made. Having gone through a cycle of empty nest downsizing and then upsizing again, my new home had room for the collection. The only problem was – I live 1,400 miles away. Never one to back down from a challenging project, my dad made it a mission to figure out how to fit everything in his SUV and get the collection to a new home. Dad would not be deterred from making this work. He measured everything from the cabinet to the boxes of glass to the duffel bags he and mom would pack in. He used scrap lumber to make a special rack for the cabinet to rest on with boxes slid underneath. He then played a masterful game of Tetris, getting everything in the Honda with no room to spare. Finally, he and Mom made the road trip, spending a few days visiting us and helping to set up the collection in its new home. Joy’s trinkets yet again bringing the family together in joy.

When I look at the cabinet today, of course I am reminded of my grandmother. But more deeply I am reminded of my entire family. I think about my grandfather and his joy in picking out the cabinet to display her collection and surprising her with that beautiful gift. I remember my parents, aunts & uncles, siblings, and cousins and the many Sunday afternoons we had together. I ponder them looking at their pieces and having the same memories. I think these trinkets are blue-shaded lenses through which we see our connection to each other.

Every circle of family and friends has their “blue glass” – the things that quietly remind us who we are and who we belong to. Sometimes it’s a trinket on a shelf; sometimes it’s a song, a recipe, or a worn-out old story that still makes everyone laugh.

Whatever yours is, notice it, hold it, and be thankful for the people it brings to mind.