Not long ago, a distant cousin who lives across the country reached out to me through Facebook messenger. She reminded me of our connection though I already knew—her maternal grandmother was my late mom’s aunt. Amy and I’d only met twice to my recollection, but I held very fond memories. She wrote:

I have something I would like to send you that belonged to your Mom, if you are willing to share your address.

I got goosebumps. Of course, I responded right away. Yet given how Amy hadn’t revealed what the item was, I chose not to ask. I’d wait and be surprised.

Soon a package the size of a shoe box arrived. As I carefully cut my way through layers of heavily taped bubble wrap, I knew something fragile must await. Then I got my first peek … a petal-shaped ceramic dish with a matching ceramic saucer. It’s true what people say: Sometimes things can take your breath away. Mom made these. Yet I hadn’t known they existed.

  

The set’s color—a baby girl pink so translucent it almost shimmers—cannot fully be grasped in the photos. Tiny web-like cracks in the glaze from its age add charm. Each dish is delicate, immaculate, and hand-painted.

To my delight, Mom had signed the bottoms. Tears spring to my eyes even writing this now.

To Aunt Thala

Sheila 7-54

Mom would’ve turned fifteen the month before.

The set was my mother’s gift to her aunt, Amy’s grandma … and unwittingly a gift to me. Had my mother crafted it in a high school art class? Perhaps during summer school? Or maybe there was a ceramic shop in Nashville, Indiana, the small artsy town where she lived at that time. Mom was once a talented artist; her landscape in oil on canvas hangs in my foyer to this day. She told me she’d painted it in tenth grade. Students had gone to Brown County State Park and sat in the woods with easels and brushes. Her scene shows depth of perspective, lovely blending of greens, browns, and golds, and a creek gently curved in the light. Mom remembered her teacher’s name, too—he’d been a member of a local art colony. A few years ago, I bought a coffee table book about that very group of artists.

But with Mom’s adulthood, her art and her piano playing and her accordion music sadly faded. Like many women, she focused more on home, her family, and career. I’m grateful to have her pink pieces—a memory of Mom’s youth captured on a day before my birth.

When I wrote to thank Amy for her thoughtfulness and for her time in preserving the artworks, she responded:

You are most welcome, Tori. I am glad they are back where they belong.