Vintage = memories

I finally figured it out. Why anything vintage, antique, or just plain old is so appealing to me. It has meaning. It has life. It has history. It is someone's story.

This past weekend, my daughter's school hosted a rummage sale as a fundraiser and I spent quite a bit of time helping with the event.

Friday morning, a sweet elderly woman came in and asked if I could help her unload her car. We chatted as we made several trips from her car to the gym. She had done some serious housecleaning and was parting with several items that meant a lot to her. She talked about some of them as she set them on the table.

The one that hit me the most was a cream colored dress and jacket. It has a pattern of branches, leaves and acorns woven into the fabric. She had it carefully wrapped in plastic, protecting it. She looked at it one last time before she left the gym, sort of smoothed it, and told me that it was the dress that she had worn to her daughter's wedding, which was clearly at least 30 years before.

And that was when it clicked. That dress was not just a dress. It held very important memories to her. She kept it tucked in her closet for years because it wasn't just a dress, it was a moment in time.

Did she look at and see her daughter getting ready before the ceremony? Could she picture her husband, whom she told me had passed away a few years before, dressed in a suit, ready to walk his daughter down the isle? It brought some sort of pictures to her mind, emotions to her heart.

And that is it. I love the stories in the "old" things that have stuck around for us to run across today. I don't always get to know the stories that go with them, but I can't help but wonder what those stories might be and make some up on my own.