Like every other bride who tossed on a white dress and marched into wedded bliss, my newly married brain was positively bursting with hopes and dreams for my new life ahead.
A home.
A family.
A life full of action and celebration and plenty of good food.
Though my imagination visualized this fantastic future in many forms, I was particularly fascinated by our new set of silverware.
We tagged Oneida's American Colonial in our gift registry and as the days crept closer to our wedding day, the place settings began to show up at our doorstep. Before we drove off on our cross-country honeymoon, my husband and I were the proud owners of a full 12-piece service.
At least as much as the ring on my finger, my silverware made me feel settled and established. Though my husband and I began to use our forks, spoons, and knives day to day right away, those hopes and dreams niggled at the back of my mind. I wondered over and over again, would they ever come true?
Yes, they did. My actual life since those days has more than surpassed my twenty-five-year-old imagination, and my set of silverware has indeed been at the center of that marvelously madcap life.
So much so, in fact, that a few pieces of it have disappeared here and there over the years.
Left behind after a picnic.
Carried off in a school lunch.
Pitched into the garbage with a sea of takeout wrappers.
As the years went by and I began to realize that some of my silverware had gone missing, I consoled myself; Someday you can buy replacements of whatever's been lost, and your set will be whole again.
Which sounds easy enough. But during those crazy years of raising four daughters on a single income, buying extra teaspoons seemed like an outrageous extravagance. Someday felt like a long, long time away.
* * * * *
Fast forward to last week. As our lives slowed to a Covid-19 crawl, and I've become more reflective about what matters in life, my silverware situation came to the forefront of my mind. While I'm not saying that buying flatware became my moral imperative, this seemed like the right time to reinvest in my family, in my vision for who we are, and who we are in the midst of becoming.
Filling in my silverware set took on
an air of optimism,
an act of confidence in the future,
a willingness to believe that life still holds out promise for us all.
So I inventoried my collection, scraped together some cash, and bought what I was missing.
Now my silverware settings are complete once again, and my hopes and dreams live on.
* * * * *
Read more stories about life with Covid-19 here in suburban Seattle:
Sitting Pretty
Scenes Of An Ordinary Easter
Our First Church
Sitting Pretty
Scenes Of An Ordinary Easter
Our First Church
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