grandma's buttons.

I was number 27.

That’s what you labeled me when you sifted through us on the red triangular kindergarten table, counting aloud with the assistance of your pudgy little fingers and your pudgy little teacher.

That was over 10 years ago now. Don’t you remember?

You were quiet, so very quiet that your voice was barely audible as you asked grandma if you could have 100 of the old buttons she still had lying around in the basement from her days in the clothing industry. Of course she obliged; she couldn’t have said no to your timid little angel face for the world. Don’t you remember her loving smile as she inquired why you needed us? You told her proudly about the celebration your class was going to have to commemorate the 100th day of your elementary school career. It seemed like a major deal at the time; 12 years of schooling later, it probably seems much less consequential. But nevertheless, grandma took the old sewing kit off the top shelf and presented us to you as if we were made out of gold. And to you, at the time, we were.

We were coral and beige, round with 4 holes in the center. You were tiny and innocent; a round face framed by soft brown curls and brightened by eager eyes.

Those weren’t like the eyes you have now, which are eager in a different way- so eager to move forward, to move ahead. So eager to get love, to get success, to get out. No, the eyes you had back then were… simpler. Eager for the very moment they were in. Eager for the people around them. Eager to live. Don’t you remember those eyes?

I know. We understand. It’s not your fault your eyes are hurting now. Maybe that’s why you stopped looking for the rest of us after you tripped that chilly October day, splashing us out all across the hard den floor. That’s what I tell myself when I wonder why you’ve never reached down to retrieve me from under the big blue couch after all these years- because it hurts so bad to have lost us to begin win. To have lost yourself. But there’s still something eager in your eyes, I can see it. And if you ever want me back, I’ll be here. Under the big blue couch. Number 27.

[dedicated to grandma, who would have been 89 today. rest in peace always.]