A Legacy of Love

A Legacy of Love

I arrived at the cottage and took a deep breath as I pulled up outside. It had belonged to my grandmother, and she and my Aunt Jean had lived in it as long as I could remember. Aunt Jean had inherited from Grandma and now it had been left to me in her will. I still struggled to get my head around that, why me and not my siblings or cousins. But Aunt Jean and I had a close relationship, made more so when I lost my father, and she had been there for me through some hard times.

I walked up the path to the door, avoiding the abundance of weeds and wild flowers that had shot up. I took out my key and opened the familiar blue door with the paint peeling on the panels, and walked into the hallway. I put my bags down and looked around. I noticed the faded flowered wallpaper, the linoleum on the floor, stained from years of muddy shoes and boots, could hear the echoes of my siblings and cousins calling to each other. The hallway was tired looking, but I didn’t see that. I remembered the good times, Grandma meeting us at the door when we came here after school, running outside to play in the street with our friends, playing ‘tag’ up and down the hallway and stairs, sleeping in a tent under the stairs, lots of happy memories.

I walked through to the kitchen and smiled as I looked at the old sink, the wood burner, the range and the big kitchen table in the middle of the room. Faded and scratched from a lifetime of scrubbing, it had been party to many important discussions within our family. Family gossip, teenage dilemmas, our love lives. All important (and not so important) discussions took place in the cosy kitchen, around the old table, drinking tea from the huge brown teapot that took pride of place in the centre of the table and always with a plate of Grandma’s homemade biscuits.

Into the sitting room with Grandma’s armchair in its familiar place by the fire. Her small table always filled with her copies of Women’s Own, her glasses, a bowl of Quality Street that she would hand out to us kids whenever we visited.

This old house was as I remembered it, but I was taken aback by the dust and cobwebs. It had always been kept so clean, Grandma and Aunt Jean spent a lot of their time cleaning, washing scrubbing and despite the old-fashioned furniture, it always felt cosy and welcoming. These days it would be called shabby chic, not sure what Grandma would have thought about that.

This old cottage held a special place in my heart. Our family is spread far and wide, but this was always the pivotal place we would gravitate to, to be close to each other and to our Grandma, the centre of our world.