Backstory
Loving children seek ways to communicate with elderly parents, even when Alzheimer’s blurs memories, steals words and causes confusion. Each encounter is a challenge, as the disease progresses. Listeners sometimes share their stories, as Amy did.
The Mason Jar of Buttons
Spending time with my mother has always been special. Now that she is slowly slipping away to dementia, it is even more important. Mom has trouble focusing and remembering. So I look for things that will engage her. This day, I was thinking about buttons.
In the depression years, women wasted nothing. When a shirt or dress was too worn to wear, it was cut into pieces to make rag rugs, and the buttons were saved to reuse. Living in that time, my grandmother kept her buttons in a mason jar.
Decades ago, my mother had given it to me.
That simple mason jar had traveled with me from house to house, unopened, chuck full of buttons. Why did I keep them? I knew I would never use them… but I cherished them as part of my mother’s history.
As I dumped all those buttons into a bowl in front of her, a huge smile lit up my mother’s face. Running her fingers through them, she chattered on about what those buttons said to her. What kind of clothing they were on, who would have worn them and when. As she did, my heart swelled that I could bring her this measure of contentment.
How inclined we are to discard things from our past. If I had tossed that jar, unopened for two decades, I would never have seen my mother’s smile of recognition – at the mason jar full of buttons.
Thank you for letting me share this with you. Somehow, I knew you would understand.
P.S.
Speaking from inside Alzheimer’s –
I’m confused beyond your concept,
I am sad and sick and lost.
All I know is that I need you
To be with me at all cost.
– Excerpt from a poem by Owen Darnell
[Show #634]
John Prine wrote a song “Hello in There” which is one of my favorites. It is the little things like shoeing up that make a difference in ones life on both sides of the equation.
https://open.spotify.com/track/7IijX5DkLaf3G4qF6xDLYa?si=zQa9EhnpTq-7qUfHz2MjNg&dl_branch=1
Indeed, Dan. It’s wise to keep learning what we really don’t want to know about this subject. You never know how soon we may need to use it.
As the saying goes Annette, thanks for the memory!💓💓💐
Transferred from email from Elsie Carr
Nice Annette…way back in my “other life”, raising four kids in suburbs of DC, a friend of mine from the “Northern Virginia Mothers of Twins Club” got involved in the collecting of buttons, and showed me her beginning collection. I found it fascinating…to make a long story short, I too began with my grandmother’s button box, and we two had many years of collecting together.(She had a lot more money to spend buying than I did!!!)
We established the Northern Virginia Button Society, went to state button shows, and National Button Society yearly conventions, often visiting other clubs around Virginia and other close by states. I was always the driver, and Lucille paid for gas. I decided to sell my collection when Robert and I decided to leave NVa and find “Mayberry”…which ended up to be St Augustine. I kept one frame of my best buttons, which eventually sold for over $2,000.
My friend is now 95, unable to leave her home in Sunnyvale, CA. Years ago, I flew out to see her for a week, to try to coordinate several of her classifications for sale at the upcoming CA state show. Her house – literally – is full of buttons. Every drawer, shelf, room, every nook and cranny. She still is sorting, buying by mail, selling by mail, and sending in frames to compete in named categories at yearly National convention.
At one point she was President of the National Button Society…every person who seriously collects buttons knows her, one way or another. It all started with grandma’s button jar! A lifetime of enjoyment for her…when she passes, her collection will be sold, as neither of her children are interested in them, and the value of her collection has been guessed to be between 2 and 3 MILLION dollars. Wish she’d adopt me!!!!!
What a story, Elsie. Who knew? You have infused new light in everyone who collects!
What a treasure, the smile I mean, and the memories rekindled by the jar of buttons. We tend to treasure that which is meaningless and toss what is so very simple. I think of those young hands that placed those buttons with a vision in mind of what they could become. Thanks for sharing – Linda
Ah yes, you see it well, Linda.
Annette, I don’t know how to tell you how much hearing this today meant to me. Mom is slipping away very quickly now so James and I sat and drank wine and cried over her last night. My sister and her husband did the same. My dad is struggling with watching his compani0n of 55 years leave his side and we are all at odds. I am so happy I sent you that letter. I am so happy that moment in time was recorded for me to hear now. Thank you.
My sympathy to you and your family at this difficult time. Glad to have been able to insert some good memories into your sad time.
Loved your story. I, too, have bunches of buttons, in a shoebox under the bed. My mother was a grand seamstress, and the clothes and suits she made for her clients were spectacular. These clients, though, never wanted to take any leftover items not used. Mom let me play with the buttons, finally giving them to me. .. in
said shoebox. Your story has caused me to pull out that old shoebox, wash the buttons, place them in an appropriate vintage glass container, and now they adorn my antique mantel. Thanks, Annette.
How sweet that the buttons are now visible to all, imo. So glad that Amy’s story led to your action.
What a sweet story Annette! My mother always kept photo albums a lot of photo albums! I have one that I have kept out of her treasury of albums. It has a lot of past pictures and present photos in it and it’s like the button jar loaded with memories! Thank you for your message.
A mason jar full of photo albums. Love that visual, Cathie.