Christmastime

My GG (great grandmother, Sarah Zielke) passed away August of 2012. I came home from college to visit GG as I knew she was ill and during my visit home see passed away. A week later I came back down from college to help out/lend a hand to my grandma and her siblings as they cleared their mother's apartment. 

My GG had some books by an author I like (Mary Higgins-Clark, if you're curious) and she would give me a new book of MH-C's to read some times when I came to visit her. As no one else wanted to keep any of the books from her collection, they were all boxed up and set aside to be given to me. I didn't really want the books but felt guilty just giving them to goodwill. 

We finished cleaning it all out and headed home. When I got home, I decided to open the box of books and pick out the ones I would keep then donate the rest. The first book that caught my attention looked more like a little gray journal. It read "COLLECTED WHISPERS" in shiny gold font with a a bunch of butterflies on the cover. I opened it and read the subtitle: The International Library of Poetry, CopyRight 2008. Intrigued, I turned the page and read this:  

Christmastime

All things are hopping

We're Christmas shopping, 

Baking cookies too

Addressing card and wrapping gifts, 

Doing tasks long overdue

Trying hard to keep in touch 

With new friends and those from the past

Making sure not to miss those we love,

Although sometimes they're last

It doesn't mean we love them less

Quite often, it is more

It's just doing things are slower now

Than they've ever been before

We still take time to remember

Our gift from God above

It makes things so much easier 

When we also share our love

- Sarah Zielke

I started to cry.

To think, I almost donated this box without much thought . . .

Who knew that it held treasures,

 a poem my great-grandma had written, published and on the first page of a book. 

Nobody knew this poem or book existed. 

If I would have donated it, we may have never known about the poem/book.

I am so glad nobody else was interested in her books and I was the one to discover her poem.

Merry Christmas, friends! 

<3 KC