Grandma’s Gift

A Story for All Ages by Aaron McEmrys

Lily loved to go to Grandma Arlene’s rambling old house on the hill. Like Grandma, it was very old, tall and a bit creaky, with lots of secret places just waiting to be found. It was probably the best place in the entire world for a game of hide and seek.

Lily’s family visited pretty much every summer when Lily was little, but now, with soccer every Saturday and Girl Scout Camp and everything, they didn’t visit as often as they used to. But this time, mom and dad said, “We’re going to Grandma’s for the whole summer. This may be one of the last times we can do it.” Lily didn’t know what that last part meant.

Grandma’s house was just like Lilly remembered it, but Grandma Arlene seemed much older now.

One day, after a story about long ago, Grandma Arlene said, “Come with me, Lily, and be very quiet. I’ve got a secret for you.”

Lily loved secrets, and followed her grandmother on tip-toes, as quiet as a cat. They went up one staircase after another to the very top of the house where nobody ever went anymore. Grandma Arlene opened an ancient door, and there, in the middle of a large dusty closet, was an old trunk, the kind that people used long ago to pack their clothes in when they would go on journeys across the sea.

Arlene carefully lowered herself into an old rocking chair, and gave Lily an old iron key. “Open it.”

Lily fitted the key into the lock and twisted very hard until the lock sprang open. It was like a treasure chest! Inside was a stack of old photo albums full of people wearing very strange outfits, like from old movies. There were baby blankets, ball gowns, hats, neckties, tarnished jewelry, old letters, a gold pocket watch, and a delicate Chinese tea-set, each piece wrapped in silk.

“Hand me that book, dear, if you please.”

Grandma opened the old photo book and thumbed through the pages smiling faintly “Ah, here we are…”

Lily looked at the picture, and then looked again. She couldn’t believe her eyes, there, in that old black and white photograph, wearing a frilly white dress with ruffles and a band of pearls around her neck was – herself, Lily?

“But Grandma, that’s impossible!” she exclaimed.

“Look closer, dear.”

Lily squinted, “Oh...her nose is a little different…and she looks a little taller than me, I guess, but who is she?”

“She is me,” Grandma said quietly. “That’s a picture of me when I was your age.”

The girl in the photograph looked almost exactly like Lily, as if they were twins – but when she climbed onto her Grandmothers lap and peered into her soft gray eyes and looked carefully at the slight downward turn of her mouth she could suddenly see that her Grandma really was the girl in the picture!

“It’s like we’re sisters, Grandma! We look just alike!”

Grandma showed Lily a lot more pictures after that, and told her all the stories that went with them. Grandma grew up in the pictures, from girl, to young woman to mother – and Lily realized that that’s probably what she would look like when she grew up. Just like the beautiful woman in the photos – her Grandma, who was now old, and took a long nap in every afternoon.

Grandma did take her nap then, and while she slept, Lily prepared her surprise. She got her dad to help carry the big trunk downstairs, and then Lily, her mom and her dad spent the afternoon decorating the old living room just so.

When Grandma woke up the sun was almost setting. She came into the family room, and stopped, surprised, before that wonderful smile of hers spread across her face.

The coffee table was set for tea, with all the delicate old cups and saucers from the trunk. There were scones and jam and little pieces of chocolate and everybody had their own silk napkin for polite eating. Lily’s father gallantly led Grandma Arlene to her chair and pushed it in for her as Lily’s mom carefully poured her a cup of tea, with her fingers just so. Her dad was even wearing a tie.

And then Lily appeared, dressed in one of the very old dresses from the trunk, an old white dress with tiny pink roses and lots of ruffles. Her skirt had thin metal hoops woven into it so it stuck out to here, and was super hard to maneuver in. A small string of pearls was around her neck.

“Look Grandma, I am you! The most beautiful girl in town!”

Grandma didn’t say anything at first. She just gazed at Lily, an unreadable expression on her face. “Yes, dear, you are me – and so very much more. Come here and let me look at you.”

And so the family had tea, as if it were eighty years ago, long before anyone had heard of cell phones, video games or even television. When they were done, Grandma Arlene pulled Lily onto her lap and said, “Dear, dear girl, you have made me very happy tonight. I have seen myself in you ever since you were born – but there’s so much more to you than that. I want you to have my old trunk. Take it with you when you go, and play dress up as much as you want. Everything in there is yours now. But you have to promise me something. Promise me that you will keep the trunk forever, and that you will put in lots of photographs and your favorite clothes and things as you grow up – and then, when you are old like me, I want you to give it to a child that you love just as much as I love you. Will you do that?”

“Yes, Grandma, I promise,” Lily replied softly, looking deep into her Grandmother’s eyes. The girl and the grandmother held each other close then, and neither of them ever forgot that moment until their dying day.

Many, many years have passed since that day, and Lily is now a Grandmother herself, and there are now two old trunks, one much older than the other – and as Lily watches her two Grandchildren playing catch in the front yard she can’t help but smile, and remember a tea party from long, long ago.