High Tea, 1987, by Holly Griggs

From MemoryArchive

Who: Holly Griggs
What: Remembrance of Grandmother
When: 1987
Where: Chicago, Il

It was on a typical week night, not long ago, when my husband came into the kitchen with his empty dinner plate. He proceeded to rinse it, wipe down the counter, load the dishwasher and turn it on. The sudden sound of jetting water startled me from the business journal I was reading, and as the rush subsided to a hum, an overwhelming pang of guilt overtook me. I sipped my wine.

I tried to figure out where this absurd feeling of failure was coming from. I work sixty hours each week and bring home a manager's salary. I plan our meals, shop for food and have decorated our home with my own labor, talent and money. Why shouldn't he load his own dishes?

As I pondered, my gaze fell upon the rolling pin resting in its holder on the counter. Except for its young age, it was not unlike the many antique glass, tin and ceramic rolling pins my grandmother displayed in her own kitchen. An avid collector, her house bulged with paperweights, Shaker hatboxes, Pennsylvania Dutch furniture, samplers...and dolls. So vast was her collection of this childhood toy that the people in the small Kansas town where she lived called her "the doll lady."

Grandmother was a true lady of her time. The epitome of the elegant hostess, her table was always set for lunch. No one ever came to her home with eating a proper meal. And proper meant antique china, correct silverware and a centerpiece fitting the season, decorated with pieces from her many collections with table linens to match. A former New England women's college teacher, Grandmother tried to teach this outspoken, aggressive girl the fine art of homemaking. And now my husband was doing housework. What would she say?

Would Grandmother approve of my decision to pursue a career outside the home? As long as I wore a conservative suit and a string of pearls. Would Grandmother understand my decision to buy a contemporary marble dining table? As long as it was properly set with coorinating china and silver. And would she find my cubist artwork appalling? Not if it was catalogued by date of purchase, artist and period.

The hum of the dishwasher droned on in the background as I sipped the last of my wine. The pang of guilt had subsided, only to be replaced by a warm feeling of love and longing for a strong yet gentle woman who I had come to know so well.

Grandmother is gone now. I have only the priceless things she left to me and a lifetime of memories. But I can picture her in her new life, surrounded by the things she loved, resting in the comfortable tapestry of times gone and things old and precious. And at 4:00, if heaven keep time, she sits at God's table, set with antique silver and all the correct forks, and serves tea.