Memories

It's that time of year when people all across the world are getting ready to celebrate Christmas, the birth of Christ, and with this wonderful celebration comes time with family and the remembrance of those who have touched our lives.

One of the most influential people in my life, and in the life of my sisters, was my grandmother,

Grandma Rosie.

Rose Josephine Faulstich Clervi was my mom's mother and the most wonderful grandmother in the world. She watched over us when my parents took a much needed break from raising 6 daughters; she lived close enough that we could ride our bikes to her house, and she was loved by everyone who knew her.  Grandma also played a pretty mean hand of "Kings on the Corner", a card game all of the grandchildren eventually learned from her.

Every year at Christmas Grandma Rosie gave us each a Christmas ornament which mom would proudly display in the house for that season and the next year it would show up on the tree as we waited in anticipation of what the new ornament would look like.

I can only imagine how my parents felt the first year they received 1 ornament from Grandma, and each subsequent year, for 4 years in a row, another ornament was purchased, till at last, in 1970, there were 6 ornaments to purchase for the granddaughters.  I think about and wonder how she selected the ornaments and if she thought about how we would all cherish these treasures and think about how much she meant to each of us.  My mom was the only child who remained in St. Louis and although I know all of my first cousins and stay in touch with them, I don't know if Grandma gave all of them ornaments or if that was something she did only for us.  I would like to think that we are all connected through our ornaments and that all of our Christmas trees share a past and are somehow intertwined.

 I love you, Grandma Rosie, and hope and pray that Jake and my little unborn granddaughter, along with Maddox and Eli think of me in the way I think of you.

 

I remember unwrapping these treasures and being so excited to share them with my sisters; each year recalling which one was "mine" and loving mine the best.

Some of these ornaments, like the little guy below, were only given to a few of us because the younger sisters had not yet arrived.  These precious few are the most special to me. 

Grandma Rosie, I love you, miss you and think of you so very much.