Greta asked about my Queen Elizabeth Jubilee mug! This all came at the most fortuitous time because I'm healing and I'm beginning to remember more of my life before my memory loss. I don't mean that I've forgotten it. My memory is back.
But I mean that the happiness and joy that was part of my normal life is something that is returning to me. That's what I mean in this instance. My therapist was so pleased at my progress when we talked yesterday. God is really using this time of illness and of being mainly confined to my home to heal my heart. In all different ways, including just working through some grief that I needed to work through. The whole feeling your feelings thing. Sometimes I forget to do that. Part of my own journey in life is just learning about how my brain works. And some of that is that I don't always see myself correctly, especially in terms of my emotions.
Anyway, I'm really thankful for this time. Because Joy can come back after grief. But if you don't process the loss and the grief, you can't fully come back to a sense of normalcy or even of moments of joy and gladness. So without saying more I'm going to tell you about the lovely time I had with my Mom on June for 2022.
First, just a bit of introduction.... I'm guessing most people remember the Queen's Jubilee which will be now 4 years ago this coming June.
My closest friends have known my love for all things English since I was in my early twenties! And really it was like I was destined to love England because I come from dish loving women on both sides of my family! And many of these teacups and other dishes were all made in England!
My mother grew up in Canada and I lived in Canada from age 21 to 35 with a few gaps in between back home in Michigan. So I've had direct links to England through Canada my entire life. And I discovered the author Elizabeth Goudge through her amazing novel, The Scent of Water In 1996 when I was newly 19. That book had such a profound impact on me. I remember telling everyone about it.
Throughout my twenties I read much of Elizabeth Goudge, as well as a lot of Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers. I began collecting beautiful teapots and teacups when my Grandma would take me to an antique store for Christmas shopping. We had so much fun! That antique store/mall is sadly no longer. But they had many stalls years ago with different people having each stall.
The tea set that I have on my buffet with the mirror tray are some of the first things I got with my grandmother. I have a collection of teacups as well. From that time. We went there every Christmas for a few years while I was at school in British Columbia at Trinity Western University. So my love of dishes comes from my Grandma.
But also actually her mother loved dishes so much that she would collect different sets and then one of her friends would especially love a certain set and my great-grandmother would sell her that set and buy a new one! She apparently did this different times. She didn't have the room or the money to have multiple sets. Though I think when she downsides she probably had three sets. My mother has one of them now the friendly village by Johnson.
My mother's mother my Oma also had lovely dishes and teacups and when my mom was younger her mother also had a silver-plated teapot set similar to mine.
My mother also loves dishes and beauty. She has my great-grandmother set but also beautiful mugs and other dishes.
In 2022 my husband and I had a very long lovely holiday in Michigan starting memorial Day weekend through most of June and I stayed until early July. I only wrote about it once. It was a beautiful time but also incredibly painful as my whole family was saying goodbye to a little boy who we thought would be part of our family through adoption for the first two plus years of his life. He was given back to a family member on his third birthday. My sister's family is still in touch with this young one but on a limited basis.
Anyway, during that time on the weekend of June 4th was Queen Elizabeth Jubilee. And so I brought all the way from our home in New Jersey two very special mugs that are English to celebrate. The one mug I bought at tea and sympathy itself. That is the one of Queen Elizabeth as a younger queen in the beautiful gold carriage with her corgis. The other mug, the one that Greta commented on is for the Queen's Jubilee itself. That mug is from Myers of Keswick. This store is a small English grocery store that also makes homemade food for sale. Both are on Instagram by the way. I'm still off of Instagram myself.
This is a collage of pictures that I took during the Pascha time in 2022 of this mug. I know what time of year it was immediately because of what tablecloth I'm using! 🤣🤨🤔☺️🤣
I believe my mom used this mug for our celebration and I drank out of the Queen's carriage mug. And we enjoyed scones and jam together. I'm guessing it was Cherry jam. And I think the scones I made without dried cherries just the straight scone.
Tea and Sympathy sells a great scone mix! It's not cheap but a certainly a fun treat!
I also as you can see in the pictures brought the Royal Palace tea with to enjoy. I actually don't have that tea in the house right now. I do really like it but I have lots of teas that I really like. And that particular container tin that is I have been using for pens. So if I ever had it again in that container it would be a new one! 🥰
So on the day of the Queen's Jubilee my mom and I enjoyed that special tea time together. I made the scones that day and then the tea and we used the pretty mugs and my mom's everyday Corelle white dishes for the scone itself.
It's now a happy memory! That was the same year and month later that I took my mom out for her birthday. It was really a special time even though it also was a time of sadness. But life is like that both threads of sadness and threads of Joy.
I think that's why I like this picture and this particular icon so much. It's the Mother of God, Joy of all Who Sorrow.
As life goes on I will always have grief work to do. I'm at the age now where my grandparents are almost all gone and my grandmother is 95. My parents are not young anymore and I'm nearly 50 myself. So just normal life will have grief but then there's other losses as well.
But I know I'm very blessed because when I looked back on the pictures of that month on Google photos, I saw so many happy times. Even though I also remember the sorrow. It was definitely a special trip that included sorrow because we all knew in advance that on this young boy's third birthday we would be saying goodbye. That was why I stayed so long. Actually my husband had to go back before me. But I stayed for the birthday party and the goodbye that this little boy had no idea was even happening.
Anyway, we have to trust God for what happens in life, even things that are tragic.
But we will always, God willing, have tea. And the comfort of God and his Mercy to uphold us in all things. May God indeed have mercy on us.
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