From the Heart
A hand-me-down apron keeps Grandma close.
Inside my kitchen drawer is a calico apron, the fabric’s chocolate background scattered with blue flowers. It fits over my shoulders and ties in the back. I wear it with love, for it once hung on a hook in my grandma’s kitchen.
In the early mornings, Grandma would don the apron and tie it with a neat little knot at her waist. Her chores awaited as she limped her way to the henhouse and bid good morning to the chickens. After giving them a scoopful of corn, she gathered up the calico hem and nestled several eggs in its large pocket.
Her next stop was the garden, where, sure enough, a handful of beans, a few ripe tomatoes and a yellow squash—to fry in butter for lunch—were waiting to be picked. These treasures joined the eggs in the pocket.
A row of colorful zinnias laughed in the morning sun and spilled from the edge of the garden. Grandma would stoop to break a few stems, add them to her collection, and then walk back to the house—the screen door slapping behind her.
The day passed as Grandma, still in her apron, performed her tasks of cooking, cleaning and laundering. In the evening after the last dish was washed, the last crumb swept and the last towel folded and tucked away, she’d take off her apron and hang it back on the hook with a sigh.
One morning, Grandma did not appear in the kitchen to slip into her brown and blue calico. The apron waited on the hook, keeping vigil over the space, which was quiet save for the ticking of the clock. That timepiece ticked away the last few months of Grandma’s battle with cancer, before the house stilled and the clock slowly wound to a stop.
The apron continued to wait. Months passed before my mother went to Grandma’s house to box up her things. She lifted the apron from its hook, and since my grandmother and I share the middle name Elizabeth, Mom presented it to me as a keepsake.
Now the apron is again being filled with fresh eggs. When I walk through my garden, I bunch its hem and load it with warm ripe tomatoes, shiny peppers and thin zucchini. I pluck a few pink zinnias and place them on top of the pile. Memories of Grandma warm my heart as I head back into the house.
At the day’s end, I tuck the apron into a drawer and smile. Maybe my young daughter, whose first name is Elizabeth, will someday treasure this simple piece of calico.
Grandma would be pleased.
`I wear it with love, for it once hung on a hook in my grandma’s kitchen.❞