Thrift shop Find

I found these at the Thrift Shop for $1.98 a piece. I thought they looked like antiques. On the back there is a tiny stamp and in red letters "Limoses France".  They are chipped, but I loved the details and bought them anyway.  They remind me of something that should be collected, tucked in a china cabinet. Then I think of  Mom and her words," we should use them, treat them with care, and enjoy these special treasures".  These words came about, after my brother broke a swirly, curly vase that was really old. She lost it and then swore she would never feel that way again about a vase, antique,or any object. She never did! My brother though will never forget that day. Basket ball in hand bouncing it down a flight of stairs. There was a rule, no balls tossed or thrown in the house. Out of all the trinkets on the shelf, tiny bud vases, nothing really valuable, but the circular, swirly vase. He shattered it to bits.

My parents bought our old home, when I was five.  They also bought this amazing light green bone china tea set, a cedar chest, and a few other trinkets, that were left behind, in the home. The previous owner, a widow lady  couldn't keep up with the home or the yard; the shrubs and hedges grew wild and rambling. The rose bushes in the middle of the lawn, were shaped in a half circle.  It was my secret playhouse, till the bees decided it was theirs. They won...  I had fabulous tea parties under the canopy of two huge maple trees. The house had a Miss Havisham feel("Great Expectations").

My Great Aunt lived across the street and her husband was a sea captain. He was famous; my Dad was named after him. My great-uncle, Capt. Earle Greenlaw, who survived two weeks adrift on a raft in the South Pacific with several members of his crew after his ship was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine.

  Captain Edwin Earle Greenlaw came home and later returned to sea and was presumed lost; his body never found. The treasures my parents bought with the home reminded me of items my great Aunt Hazel had.  She was my grandfather's sister; she had developed Polio really young. She was a young widow, left with a daughter and twin boys. She ended up in a wheel chair; she had the most amazing spirit of anyone I have ever met. There was something really special about her. Her will to live more, in spite of her handicap. When I find unique dishes, I can't help, but think of the amazing lives beyond them. Were they happy, did they have arranged marriages?  What were their lives really like?!  Our lives are like these dishes, fragile, beautiful and meant to be shared~