Stories

My Go Fish Partner

Playful, youthful, and creative. These are the words I want to embrace in this new year. My great-grandmother left an impression on me so profound that, even though I didn’t understand it at the time, it shaped who I would become—the hobbies I would cherish and the simple things I would hold close.

Every Christmas, she gave me a hand-knitted scarf gently wrapped in tissue paper. A handwritten note in her graceful cursive was taped to the front, always signed the same way: “Your Go Fish partner.”

Visiting her felt like stepping into a world apart. Her small suite held more than furniture and belongings—it held stories. Picture frames filled with familiar and unfamiliar faces. Trinkets and porcelain figurines, each thoughtfully placed. Cards and letters taped to her door, photo albums brimming with stickers and captions, and an abundance of beaded jewelry. And her desk—a sacred space where she knitted, wrote letters, read books, played solitaire, and stayed connected to family through emails.

To me, she was a queen in her castle.

It wasn’t until I grew older that I realized the stories she told me as a child would one day become the stories I’d tell of her. She spoke of her late husband with a tenderness that lingered. She shared memories of my mom and aunts with vivid clarity, proof of how present she had been in each moment—so present that, even at 100 years old, she could recount those stories and make me feel as if I had lived them too.

Her passing was the moment I understood just how much of her lives on in me.

In October 2023, I began building a wooden dollhouse—a project I had hoped she would admire. However, time didn’t allow for that, working on it after her passing made me feel closer to her.

When I told my grandfather—her son-in-law—about it, he was thrilled. A tilework veteran, he admired the tiny bathroom tiles I chose. Suddenly, the project wasn’t just for her or my inner child—it was for him, too.

Before I completed the bathroom, he passed away.

I felt the weight of their absence in every detail. I spent countless days and nights meticulously gluing tiny pieces of wood, caulking trim, measuring the siding, cutting tin for the roof—and for what? What started as a joyful expression of creativity had become something tangled in grief. This was no longer an ode to my younger self, no longer a gift for a great-grandmother who could no longer receive it, nor a project for a grandfather who couldn’t see it. Instead, it became a journal of emotions housed in a miniature home filled with miniature things.

The folders of stickers, the bins of ribbon, my desk filled with paints and brushes, the stack of cards in my drawer, the trinkets that fill my room, the simple joys I hold close, my love for human connection, my need to be soft and gentle, the beads and string waiting to become something beautiful, the blank canvases ready for a story —  my great grandmother lies within all of the things I do.

If I could have even a fraction of the impact she had on me, I would count my life full. This dollhouse will always remain part of our family’s story, waiting to be cherished by my children, my grandchildren, and—if I am so fortunate—my great-granddaughter.