- Heirloom Hours journal entry -

The Things She Kept Around Her

 - A Keepsake Story -

A tender reflection on my Nanna's home, the small familiar things she kept around her,
and the quiet ways love can live inside ordinary rooms, handmade treasures and childhood memories.

My Nanna’s home was a place of love. 

The kind of love that could be felt in the small familiar things around her home.

To someone else, they may have looked ordinary.
But to me, they were part of the feeling of her home.

Things that were meaningful to her.

And things that made me feel
special,
important
and cherished. 

Her home
had a way of
making ordinary
things feel
important.

It was also my second home. 

It was a place I returned to throughout my childhood. 
The place I looked forward to during school holidays.
The place where I felt cared for, safe, and quietly loved.
There is a steadiness to her home that I understood even as a child.

The same things sat in the same places.
The same rooms held the same warmth.
The same familiar objects waited for me each time I returned.

And somehow, those things made me feel held.

When I think of my Nanna’s kitchen, I remember all the small familiar things that surrounded her.

The flour canisters on the mantlepiece.
The old oven.
The lolly jar.
The kitchen window.
The glass cabinet.
The plates and glassware.
The little pieces she treasured.
The old time music that played softly in the background.

None of it was grand.
None of it was styled.
But everything felt cared for.

But they meant something because they belonged to her, and because.. 

.. she kept them
close to her
.. where they
could be seen.

I remember the little things I made for her as a child. 
She did not hide them away in a drawer
or place them somewhere forgotten.

Near the window above the high stool where I sat, she kept the macramé rope I had made for her, with cloves wrapped in pretty fabric. And the opposite wall was another piece I had made — a Ministeck picture of a young girl.

My Nanna often told me how much she loved that little picture.

Perhaps that is why I remember it so clearly.

Small things. 
Simple things.
Things a child had made with care, hope and love.
Things I had made especially for her.
And she kept them.

I remember feeling something warm inside whenever I saw them still hanging in her home.
A quiet kind of pride. 
A feeling that what I had made mattered... that I mattered...

As children, we do not always need big words to know we were loved.

Sometimes we know because something we made is still on the wall.

Because our photo is still beside the others.

Because there is a high stool kept in just the right place, inviting us to climb up and sit.

Because someone makes room for us in the ordinary rhythm of their day.

My Nanna’s home was full of those quiet messages of love. 

Baby photos of the grandchildren lined the wall in her bedroom near the kitchen. I remember seeing them there and feeling that we were all part of her world, just as she was such a steady, loving part of mine.