Flashback Friday: Door Harp

It appears that blogger has had the hiccups for the past couple days? Boooo to that. And sorry for the lack of posting, and especially the delay of our weekly flashback. Maybe I'll do some postings this weekend to make up for the lack of posts during the week.

This week I'm doing a different sort of flashback. Usually I flashback using old pictures, but today I'm using a new picture, with old memories. Change it up a bit...

I didn't get many gifts for my birthday this year. I didn't need many gifts, I wasn't expecting many gifts, but what I did get, was more perfect than any gift I could have hoped for.

See when I was a child, after my family and I moved to Washington state, I used to take summer trips by myself down to California (I'd fly alone) to visit our family.

And there was nothing better, than that first step into my Grammy (who was called "Grandma Chyrl" back then) and Grandpa's house- the smell of their cool crisp air, and the sound of their beautiful door harp.

Every time we'd open and close the door, beautiful music would play. I'd never seen anything like it, and to this day that remains true.

I had mentioned to my Grammy, in one of those random and kind of depressing "Tia I need to know what you'd like as your inheritance" emails. The door harp was the first thing that came to mind. The specific item, but really the melody that it sings, that reminds me the most of some of the most important people in my life, and the vivid summers that we spent together.

Grammy, if nobody has claimed your fifth wheel yet and the truck to pull it, I'll take that too :)

When my birthday package came, I was all too anxious to open it, a few days early maybe. I saw the wooden edge, and assumed it was a frame of some sort, but didn't want to ruin the surprise (I was only trying to get to the card anyways), so quickly put it back into the package, and when Christopher got home, had him go peek and tell me if I'd like it or not (I'm terrible, right?).

I didn't want to ruin my birthday surprise entirely, so I left it alone until the morning of May 5, and then anxiously asked for it, still not knowing what it was, first thing.



It was my door harp. My Grammy had sent it to me early.

At first I was overcome with joy. And then sadness, because- that means that the next time I walk into her house, I won't hear the beautiful music.

Later that evening, during my birthday phone call, she assured me that she has another, and the pretty songs still sing when they go in and out.

It was the best gift ever.

It will hang in our home forever and ever, until theres no door for it to hang on anymore. And then it will be passed on to one of my daughters, or maybe one of their daughters.

So girls: better fight over who gets it now. Eleanore, you're the oldest, so you kinda get the upper hand in this situation. Just sayin'.

Grammy I love you.
Thank you.

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So heres what we do. Every week we dig through our memories- old cell phone pictures, polaroids from 1986, something that you pulled out of a dirty shoe box- and we flashback to it. We show it off, and we write about it. We take ourselves back to that place, with as little or as much detail as our hearts are willing to share. Scan it, upload it, copy and paste it from your livejournal (remember those?)- display your memories in whatever way works for you. And then grab out button way down at the bottom of the page there (or link back old fashioned text style), add it to your flashback, add your link to our flashback, and if you've got an extra minute- maybe browse around and read some of the flashbacks left by others. Its just for fun. And really- memories are too precious to be left in an old dirty shoe box.