When I was a very small child I used to love to visit with my grandma on my mother’s side. She had a set of handmade building blocks that would keep me entertained for hours on end. On a shelf on her buffet she also had a milk china candy jar in which she would keep chocolate buds, or Hershey’s Kisses, as they are now called. I would climb up on a chair and stand on my tip toes to reach really high up, lift the lid, and take a chocolate bud, placing the lid down as gently as I could so that it would not be heard. It was always heard by my mother and my grandmother who were in the kitchen. They would quietly chuckle to themselves at my efforts to get yet another chocolate bud from the jar. When I would reach the acceptable limit, my mother would let me know that I had better stop so that I don’t get sick from it. I never did get sick from it, so I was sure that was simply an excuse that all adults (control freaks, each and every one of them!) used to crash the party.
My grandmother also had a silver tea pot with an ivory handle on it that she would make tea in. From early childhood onward I was encouraged to drink tea. This eventually led me to reading tea leaves. The tea was always delicious, and I was always fascinated with the silver tea pot and the ivory handle. I did not like the fact that the ivory came from some poor elephant, but it looked really cool when attached to the rest of the tea pot. My grandmother said to my mother one day that when she passed to the other side of the Veil, she would like me to have that tea pot. Unfortunately, when that time did come, I had an older aunt who was greedy to the point of criminal and who emptied my grandmother’s house really quickly upon her death. I did not see that tea pot again…until…
Fast forward now. Picture it, Saskatoon, 2017, in a Value Village outlet. I was there with a friend who was an artist. We were searching out picture frames to repurpose for her art. As we were looking at the picture frames along the back wall, I felt someone tap me on the shoulder. I turned to see who it was, but no one was there. I did, however, see something glowing on a bottom shelf down the aisle from where I stood. I said that I would be right back and went to see what was glowing like that. It was not a reflection or a shine from light hitting something. It was the glow of energy. I squatted down and there, on the bottom shelf, was a tea pot that looked almost exactly like my grandmother’s. This one, however, had some kind of a black handle, and the silver was tarnished enough to create a fascinating batik instead of the shiny silver look. I reached out, picked it up and suddenly I was hit with a flood of visions of its journey to get to this place at this time. Apparently, this was, indeed, my grandmother’s tea pot that had been taken, given to one of my cousins, handed down, broken, repaired and then donated to Value Village. I could not believe what it was communicating to me. And then I heard my grandmother’s voice say, “It took a lot of effort, but I finally got it to you!” With that, I stood up, said a silent thank you to my grandmother and turned to go back to my friend and our quest. But as I turned there was an elderly woman standing in the aisle looking at me with an intense glare. She said to me, “If you decide that you are not going to buy that, bring it to me.” It was said more as a command than a request. I tucked the tea pot under my arm and replied, “Don’t worry yourself about that. It is coming home with me where it belongs.”
I have had many a tea gathering with my grandmother’s tea pot since then. I even have had a few times where I serve loose tea and read the leaves for friends. Whenever I do that, I feel so close to my grandmother once again. The Veil is never so thick that we cannot connect with our ancestors. They are a part of our very DNA and, as such, nothing can separate us for very long at all.