Growing up my grandma would tell me many wonderful stories of her childhood that I will forever cherish. On my 18th birthday I was gifted one of her treasures from her hope chest story. It was in the late 50s when she was a young girl, always asking her parents for a cedar wood hope chest. Every birthday since my grandma was 6 she asked for this hope chest. She wanted to fill it her favorite hand sown dresses that her mom would spend hours making. Birthdays would come and go every April 14th, and still no hope chest. Until she had turned 10, when she woke up with the house smelling like cinnamon from homemade cinnamon rolls in the oven. There it was, sitting in the middle of the living room her hope chest. She would continue to love this hope chest and fill it with many different things for over the next 54 years. She would later pass it down to me on my 18th birthday. Upon first opening her beloved hope chest was the strongest smell of fresh cedar wood still as vibrant as the day she received it, a ring, and her wedding dress. If you open it up today you will come to find the same two things just as she had placed them 13 years ago. Along with some of the most meaningful things that has been given, written, or passed down to me since. This past January she passed away at 75, peacefully with me and others by her side. The meaning of this hope chest is more than I can say now that she is gone, but I know she is looking down on me everyday. So proud as she would always say.

– B.N.

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