Rhonda Reese Purtee

Bill and I just celebrated our 29th anniversary, so it was in late December, 1986 when we returned from our honeymoon to a living room filled with wedding presents yet to be opened. We received some wonderful gifts, and I can’t think of any that I have treasured more over the years than the milk glass vase in today’s photo. It was a gift from my Grandma Reese. It wasn’t new, she gave it to me from her small assortment of milk glass because “it was one of her favorites.” She had owned it for a number of years, so I’m not entirely sure how old it is, but I know it’s old. It’s original use was to be a planter or vase, but since we’ve already established that keeping plants alive is not something I do well (or at all,) I have repurposed it. I’ve used it to store baby bottle rings, then sippy cup lids, then plastic tableware. I’m quite certain that when this vase was made, no one even considered the possibility that one day it would be used to corral forks that people would use one time and throw away, but that’s one of the benefits of hanging around for a while and making yourself available; you just might get to do something that you would have never thought of in an earlier time and place. Like a stable, that was used for a nursery, like a manger that was used for a crib, like a King who was made a sacrifice.