Each weekend when I was younger, my family would visit my great-grandparents who lived right down the street from us. Every time they opened the front door to greet us, they would prop it open with a small iron dog. I never understood the importance of this figure I merely saw as an old doorstop. When my great-grandfather was diagnosed with stage 4 lung cancer, my parents began to clean out his house and found a photo of a mysterious woman with a small dog, one that resembled the figure by the front door. The little dog the woman has a leash around is the little iron dog that stands by the front door. To our surprise, the photo was of my great-great-great-grandmother. My great-grandmother told me that was her grandma and as she got older, as dementia crept up on her, she found comfort in the iron dog as it looked like her childhood pet. That object I saw as a doorstop in my childhood had such a long past I was unaware of until the time left for stories from my great-grandparents slowly came to a close. When they both passed away in 2020, the iron dog was taken home to my sisters and me alongside the photo. It now sits in my younger sister's room, closest to the front door. I hope the condition of this iron dog and photograph remains for many years and can be passed on to the future members of my family. All as a reminder of the prominence of my great-grandparents in my life and serve as a figure to start conversation about all of the memories my family has shared with them.

– AE

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