There was a sale on potatoes and it seemed like everyone in the family decided to buy a bag. At one point, I opened the pantry and it smelled like my grandparents’ basement, the room on one side that they filled with potatoes in a pile taller than me.
In my memories, there is a small version of myself sitting in a field where my grandparents grew potatoes. I was young enough not to be afraid of insects yet and would find snails, earthworms or mealybugs. I saw my Oma, bent over in a wide-legged pose I’ve only tried to master in yoga, more youthful in image than any memory I have. There is dirt in the crevices of her hands and she prompts me to remember her hands as she cut green beans and tossed them into a worn yellow bowl, scratches from use leaving lighter streaks in certain areas. I can still feel the weight of that bowl and those memory scratches now.
It’s a split second, and I’m back in my kitchen. Would any of these inanimate objects in my kitchen become those memories? Maybe it’s the solid blue bowl I took out to make a tres leches cake with my daughter; she has seen it all her life. It’s my plate of cakes and pancakes. Steel bowls are for popcorn. Glass bowls are for melting butter and cutting hot chicken.
Making memories is a lot of pressure, especially during the holidays. There’s a kind of freedom in realizing that some memories created aren’t the ones you can control, for better or worse.
One year after my dad’s death, my mom returned to Germany to be with her parents. In talking to her about my memories, I realized that the estate sale I managed must have been more traumatic for me than I thought because I don’t remember much about her. I only remember one vignette of the strangers in our house, an older man in a brown jacket clutching a red plastic cup that I had used all my life. He turned it over and placed it back on the shelf dismissively.
I don’t know how the sale of the property ended, but that glass is gone. The next memory is that I was going to drink warm beer at Pizza Hut under the watchful eye of my roommate, who accompanied me on the trip.
I’m grateful to be here to make memories, even if I can’t control their reach. But, remembering the kindness of my roommate, the comfort of my Oma and the laughter of making cakes with my daughter, I see again that meaning goes beyond material things. Objects, at best, are just containers through which we remember the people we love and who love us.
It’s not the right table runner. It’s not about the right holiday wreath. The right optics can sometimes be irrelevant when filtering through the mundane. It’s the memory of always sitting in the left corner of the table, the side with a cut in the wood that you could rub your thumb against. It’s the flash of memory about the tassels on a lamp that you remember your mother hated but because her in-laws bought it, she needed to be put in the dining room for Big Events. She would wink at you and she would laugh when she would take it out of the closet.
Give thanks for the freedom in the lack of control; It’s those memories that will keep you alive. Be yourself in your most worldly way, in your most loving way, and in your kindest way. Your smile, your hands and your laughter are the gifts that will pierce the veil of time. And, someday, her granddaughter may open the pantry, smell muddy potatoes, and suddenly be at her grandparent’s house for just one more minute.
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Cassie McClure is a writer, millennial, and die-hard fan of the Oxford comma. You can contact her at [email protected] To learn more about Cassie McClure and to read articles by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at Creators.com.