It’s time once again for Friday Fictioneers which is brought to you each week by Rochelle at Addicted to Purple.
Thank you, Rochelle!
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~My entry for August 15, 2014 ~
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Grandfather’s Chair
PHOTO PROMPT -Copyright – Jan Wayne Fields
Gazing at Grandfather’s self portrait reminded her of the many times she’d sat in his lap watching him work. After the funeral, Grandmother promised she’d put stickers on all the things she knew us kids wanted,
“No confusion this way” she winked.
When Grandmother passed, her brother called to say he’d auctioned off the old homestead,
” More fair this way.” he’d said.
Years later, when traveling cross country, Emily spied a chair like Grandfather’s in a junk shop and bought it. Loading it into the car the shopkeeper reached out to remove a small sticker.
“NO, leave it!” she cried.
Words: 100
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For some really great takes on this weeks prompt, please look
~ HERE ~
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What will you write?
Try it!
Life on the Farmlet 
That was a lovely take on the prompt. Reunited with the past. Well done.
Thank you, Sandra. My mother always called me the family historian because I liked to keep the family things together with their histories. Unfortunately, we lost quite a few items to my roughhousing little brothers before I ever had the chance to inherit any of them. 😛
Very touching. It’s always wonderful to imagine that such things could happen. Most of the older generation in my family is long gone.
Thank you, Dolly Marionette! 🙂
A fun take on the prompt, and not all that impossible. It did remind me of pieces of furniture around here. Sometimes, when I was clearing out Mom’s apartment, I’d turn one over and find a moving sticker from long ago. That’s a different kind of history, but it’s history nonetheless.
Linda,
You are the second person to note that the stickers were “history”. I’d never even thought of it in that way, yet it is true. We have a few items in our home with a sticker on the back. 😉
I’m glad you enjoyed my story!
Dear Lynda,
Such a sweet story that made me smile.
shalom,
Rochelle
Dear Rochelle,
For many reasons writing this ending was very satisfying for me.
BTW, I loved that the chair in the framed picture was identical to the chair in the foreground. I had nothing this week until I realized that! 🙂
Thank you!
Lynda
So good she could reclaim the… and the sticker is the real history.
Björn, you are correct; it is the sticker! We have a couple of heirlooms, from my husband’s family, with stickers on the back. 😉
A very fine story.
I’m glad you enjoyed it, Tom. 🙂
Oh my!! This really touched me, Lynda – kind of tugged at my heartstrings! Being 450 miles from home, my grandparents and my Dad’s things were taken by others and anything that meant anything to me was either taken or tossed before I could get there. What a happy ending. I felt better knowing she found what she loved. 🙂
Lori, I had similar feelings to yours as a wrote this piece. The area here is always hosting someone’s auction. All the old farms, all that history, gone to the highest bidder. Often what is bid is pittance for a cherished memory.
In our home the cherished items were mostly broken before us kids ever got to own them. (Broken by the boys carelessness, broken in moments of anger by my parents, so sad.)
I was happy for Emily too. 🙂
I’m so glad she found the chair! When I read that the farm had been auctioned I said “Oh, NO!” right out loud.
Alicia, I live in an historical farming community. I see the auction signs posted around the countryside all the time. I often wonder about the stories behind the items being sold.
Thank you!
Aww. Very nice. Very touching.
The brother shouldn’t have sold off everything to begin with…
but a little of all’s well that ends…
Randy
True, Randy. Family members can often be thoughtless at times like that. He took the easy way out of dealing with the issue:
Sell, divide the profits, DONE.
What a great take on the photo! Ironically tragic but it still brought a smile to my face…
Thank you, and glad to know you smiled! 🙂
Lynda, Good and well-written story. Very touching.After moving a number of times, I only have a couple of pieces that belonged to my parents. One of the pieces is broken, but I kept the piece in case it can be repaired. As we move to smaller places, we find the old pieces are too heavy and/or often don’t fit, so we have to let go. Well done. 🙂 —Susan
Susan, in almost thirty-five years of marriage, we moved from one tiny apartment to another in the early years. Then we lived in three homes that got larger each move. Urg… our next move will be to our antique farm house and it will be half the size of where we are now. When the time comes it will be very hard to choose what to keep and what to let go.
I’m glad you like my story this week; thank you!
Ohh.. So sweet & touching..!!
Thank you, Pratik. It is a different genre for me this week and I had hoped it would work. 🙂
Awww…that really touched me.
Thank you, Dawn, I’m glad you enjoyed it!
Very sweet! I would love to think that good things come back around like that.
From a previous comment: Yes! Those blue moving stickers (at least that’s what color they were when the military moved us). Not as sentimental but definitely a memory!
Thank you, Laurie! We have a few items from Bob’s mother that still have little stickers on the back… they have our name on them in his mother’s beautiful script. 🙂
There’s an Oscar Wilde quote about “people who know the price of everything and the value of nothing,” which seems to be exactly what your story is about. I like how you managed to capture a genuine emotion at the end.
What a lovely comment, Blake. Thank you!
Dear Lynda, Very well written story! Great job, and Mike’s parents passed a year ago, and we all took turns naming what we wanted. Mike got several handcrafting tools (his father was a master craftsman) and it is nice that Mike can use some of them now. Nan 🙂
Thank you, Nan! Sorry to get back to you so late, but I haven’t been around much for several weeks!
It was much the same with my father. My regret is that we didn’t bring those lovely tools with us when we moved cross country, as I have suddenly gained the spark to create with wood! 🙂