Old Memories Remembered, New Ones to be Made

One week away from demolition. We' re slowly emptying out the kitchen and adjacent areas that are in the path of the sledgehammers. Things on the walls are coming down. pictures clocks, curtains, and shelves. Cabinets have been nearly emptied except for the things I will use up to the last minute. I've been testing paint samples on the walls while trying to imagine just how it will all come together in the next six weeks.
Today though I stopped and remembered moving my grandparents into this house 29 years ago. My grandfathers health had declined quite a bit and it was getting difficult for my grandmother to look after him on her own. So they sold their house in Dallas and moved in this house just down the street from my parents. I helped her unpack the kitchen and place all her beautiful things in the cabinet. This kitchen was much smaller than her one in Dallas and she didn't have room for everything. She gave me her china and crystal that she had bought for special occasions. I never recall her using it as she preferred her Franciscan Desert Rose dinnerware. Last weekend I packed away that very same china and crystal very carefully as it is all so delicate. I guess I am very much like her as I never seem to use it. I am always fearful of a piece being dropped. Each piece is so thin, it almost seems translucent. It is of a design from days long past. Cream with delicate tiny pink rose border. Lined around the edge with a thin gold border. The crystal is even more delicate. Almost artistic in the swirls that spiral up so delicately from the base. While I may not ever bring them out to use I only have to look up at the cabinet where they were stored and remember them and the day she gave them to me.
This kitchen will soon become history as saws and sledgehammers clear away 59 years of memories. I can imagine a family moving into this brand new home in 1954, the excitement they would have felt putting things away in that tiny kitchen. Family meals, hurried breakfasts, and holiday feasts that were celebrated over these many years by many different families. This summer will be 10 years since we moved in. The kitchen was dirty, walls were damaged and I spent many days cleaning and painting to make it and inviting place. For those first six years it was just Alan and I, we managed just fine but always planned on re-doing it someday. Well that someday has come, and we are completely changing not just how the kitchen looks but also how we will use it. It is a kitchen that will allow big family dinners with all of the kids and partners and more to gather comfortably. It will allow interaction between the living spaces as I will no longer be cut-off behind walls. It is a kitchen designed for all the modern demands that we demand in out kitchens that didn't even exist in the 1950's. It will also be a kitchen to take me well into my senior years with lots of drawers and pull out shelving. It is being designed for easy access and easy cleaning. I am excited to see it come to life.
Now I know that looking back on all the memories in the old kitchen will never fade (at least I hope not) there will be so many more years ahead to create many new memories in the new one. And hopefully with this better use of space and design I will be an even happier cook. But for now I have one last Sunday dinner to prepare before it all gets packed away and I'm even going to make cake pops for dessert!
Now some pictures one last time before it all bites the dust.