A memory found

This week we found the key to the old sewing machine's drawers. Apparently, they have been locked since the girls were little and the sewing machine sat beside the door on Walnut St.. We used it as a place to put our keys and such when we came in the door. I remember locking the draweres on one side because the girls would take everything out and I would spend days looking for things. For some odd reason, they never bothered the keys, so the left side drawers never got locked. Last week, some 9 years later, I found the key and found some treasures, too. Here is one of them:
This little book was on the stand in Grama Smith's kitchen for all the years I can remember. I loved to look at it and the names and dates inside. Along with this book, there was always an old envelope on Grama's table with the month's birthday people written on the back, in order. Grama would walk uptown and buy all the birthday cards she needed for the month, according to her birthday book and her envelope. Everyone is in the book. I recognize almost every name.

See, here's Bee Be Wahlaub.She was one of Grama's friends who was a real kick. She went against the grain, but was still a lady in every sense of the word. I liked her. Many of the names have "deceased" written next to them. Grama lived longer than a lot of her friends.
I tried to make one of these books once, after I found a version at Hallmark. I filled it with all the names of family and some friends, too. I stuck with it for about a year. I"ve figured out why it didn't work for me, after thinking about it for a while. Grama lived in a time when she fully expected to have these people in her life for her lifetime. Grama was born in her house, and lived there for all but about 4 of her 94 years. She was friends with her friends for a lifetime. This seems so foreign now, in a time when everything is instant, or disposable. I miss Grama. I wish she would have had the chance to write my children's names in her book. For now, I will keep the little book and remember how she always remembered. I want to be that kind of person.