Joy and the sharing of memories

Yesterday was a day of mixed emotions for me. Joy and sorrow all tangled up together but in the end joy outweighed the sorrow.

Let me give you a bit of background before I fill you in on what I did yesterday.

As I sort through all the "treasures" I have collected over the years I have to make tough decisions whether to take the treasure with me or take only the memories and leave the object behind. Handmade items crafted by loved ones who have passed are the hardest ones to part with. Sigh.

One such item that has really tugged at my heart is a rather large craft project my mother made over twenty years ago. I inherited this craft because Lady Bug had a teddy bear collection at one time, and, when my mom died, my sister thought that Lady Bug should have this item that her grandmother made and treasured. Lady Bug is a traveller and she likes to travel light. While she values this item she has no place for it and probably never will.

My mother was a very creative person, and I remember vividly all her forays into different crafts when I was growing up. During the whipped wax candle phase, we peeled wax off almost every surface in the house. The sequin ribbon Christmas trees were another wild craft that got out of hand; we had bits and pieces of sequin ribbon in every nook and cranny in the house. When we cut that stuff it would shoot like shrapnel all over the room. I would go to school with it in my hair and even find it in my sandwich at lunch. Yuck!

Sparkle dust was another dastardly craft item that would get all over everything, and all us kids would sparkle and glisten long before glitter make-up was even thought of. I wonder what the guys at work said to my dad when he showed up with sparkle dust in his moustache?

My mom took great delight in making something out of nothing. If you had to go out and buy expensive material to make a craft then it wasn't nearly as much fun for her, and for much of her married life she never had extra money to buy craft materials. She would collect egg cartons to make wastebaskets, orange juice tins to make pencil holders, plastic bags to make Poodles (don’t' ask), old greeting cards to make bowls, sequin ribbon to make Christmas trees — you get the idea.

Dear mom hated housework but loved to do her crafts and could sit in the middle of the rubble of a messy house and create beauty out of the "trash" she collected. Amazing really, but the messy house drove me crazy even as a kid. I hated the piles of egg cartons piled in the corners awaiting the transformation process and the rolls of plastic, soon to become Poodles, sitting in the middle of the living room floor. She didn't mind it, or didn't see it, I am not sure which, but she had to create and create she did.

One of her creations and the prized craft that we inherited is a Teddy Bear's Picnic made out of bread dough. Yes, bread dough. I don't know how many hours mom spent on this project, but it is an absolutely amazing piece of art. Each piece was painstakingly made out of bread dough, cooked in the oven, hand painted and arranged in this picnic scene. Every blade of grass, bottle of pop, piece of ice, hamburger, hotdog, sandcastle – is made of bread dough. The only things that aren't bread dough are the mirror used for the water, the paper on the kite, the string on the fishing pole, the lace on some of the bears' dresses, and the paper on the finish line sign.



I have had this sitting on a bookcase under a glass cover for thirteen years. Now that we are moving to a much smaller house on the other side of the province I have to decide what to do with this rather large piece of art. It is over twenty years old now, and rather fragile. Would it even take a move across country?

I woke up last week with the bright idea of contacting the Children's library to see if they would accept it as a donation to be displayed there. Yesterday was my appointment with the curator to talk to her about it. With heart beating a little faster, I walked into the library with mom's treasure and wondered what the librarian would think of it. Much to my delight she was absolutely thrilled with it. She took down all sorts of information about it and said she would tour it to all the other libraries in the county – twenty seven in all. I walked out of the library in a swirl of emotions. It made me sad to leave The Teddy Bear's Picnic behind, but I was also full of joy that it would be on display in the Children's library and enjoyed by so many.

We left the library and went down to the Bay for coffee and a few minutes of quiet by the water. I sat there and let the emotions of the day wash over me. I looked up at the sky and thought of mom and how pleased she would be that her work of art would be on display for the children in this area. It felt good and it felt right.

Joy and sorrow all tangled up together, but, in the end, joy outweighed the sorrow. How wonderful when that happens.