Mouth Drop

When me and my husband and our kids moved back to Mountlake Terrace, I  only had two ‘valuable’ things to move.

One was my cat Wolfgang- and the other was a picture that used to belong to my Great Grandmother Nan.

Nan was a force of nature in our family- she was tall, red headed I’d seen her make grown men cry- and not in a good way.

I thought she was grand and one of my goals in life was to look like her when I grew up. Of course, that wasn’t going to happen but she and my Grandpa Bert ( her son ) would swear up and down that I looked like her.

The print was very old and the frame was delicate and I loved it. I hung it above the sideboard I’d inherited from her.

I packed it ( the picture, not Wolfie, I bought Wolfie a dog crate  that was designed to withstand blah, blah blah it was EXPENSIVE) and a special little crate for the picture.

When we got to Terrace we unpack the picture and it’s smashed to smithereens.

I was beyond angry.

I trashed it myself.

A few months later it was the end of Summer and we were pulling things out of our storage room for our Labor Day picnic- croquet set, babarque  stuff, pirate flag.

I was NOT looking forward to having my Dad and Grandmother noticing the picture was gone and having to explain how something that had been in our family for so long was gone and having to tell them it was pulverized and in a land fill now.

All  of the sudden two of my sons are not just calling me from the storage room,  they sound panicked.

Spider I figured.

I go into the storage room and the boys are pointing in a corner and I figure spider but instead  of a spider.

There it is.

Nan’s picture.

Nan was a force of nature, like I said.

I picked the picture up without blinking an eye, hung it above the sideboard where it is to this day  and my husband and sons have spent years ignoring it.

I don’t ignore it.

Ever.