She was a wise one.

I heard the dish, gifted long ago by my mother-in-law, crack moments after I put it into the oven. I had noticed many hairline cracks long, long ago; yet, the dish had continued to serve.

I remember commenting on the beautiful dish, long ago, when we took my toddler to buy red-patent-leather shoes at Marshalls. "Grandma" loved to deck my toddler in "bargain" holiday shoes for Christmas and Easter and so we were on a specific mission that day.  Clearly my daughter did not need red patent leather shoes, but Grandma insisted that she all needed "something pretty and special."

"That's lovely," I commented noticing the dish near the check-out. As a busy mom, my goal was to put food on the table quickly and "presentation" was not high on my priorities. "So impractical," I added smiling.

"You know," the wise one offered, "You too deserve to have something pretty and special, even if it is not practical."

The dish was wrapped for me that Christmas.  I knew in my heart she had gone back the next day to get it for me even though it was impractical.

There are very few pieces of  my "old" life left, and those I held onto because they elicited happy memories or because they were just lovely, are starting to give-in to the wrath of time and use.

I'm going to miss that old impractical, yet well used dish and wonder if it cracked today to serve as a reminder that we are all special, even if we've been cracked, and we all deserve something special once in a while. After all, I am the "Grandma" these days.

I've got the doctorate, but she was a wise one.