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by Kristin F.
I step out of the rain into the small, warm trailer.
The smell of fish and potatoes tantalizes my nostrils.
I walk down the tiny hall and into the kitchen where my grandmother sits picking out buttons for a special project she made.
She greets me and tells me to sit down.
I look at her button jar and start going through the many different varieties of vibrantly-colored buttons.
A couple of interesting looking buttons catch my eye.
My grandma says they are Dutch buttons. Back in Holland, they used to put them on pillow cases. Six on each case, she tells me. She had brought them to Canada almost fifty years ago as a young bride.
She starts telling me the stories of some of her other buttons. The buttons she had salvaged from old coats given to her by a neighbor, and how she had always made most of the clothes for her six children, including my mom.
As I listen to her stories, I see a woman whose body is now ravaged by bone cancer but whose spirit is undaunted even by that.
Her life has been a full one, filled with pain, love, sadness, and happiness and through her button jar, I have been able to have a glimpse of this courageous life.
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