I was getting ready for my book launch early this week and pulling all the big serving plates out of the cupboards. Then I remembered this one, which is stored waaaay back in my “things that break easy” cupboard on the top of the refrigerator that takes me standing on a chair to reach. It’s so pretty isn’t it? My husband and I bought it twenty years ago in Turkey and I’ve always been really careful with it.
“Should I use it today?” I wondered. Then I remembered a story. My sister Roxanne was visiting and I took out the plate to show her because I knew she would love it. She loved beautiful things. Then she asked why it was in a cupboard. “I’m afraid it will get chipped,” I told her. Then she said: “If I owned that I’d have it out on my coffee table where I could see it every day. Why keep beautiful things in a cupboard?”
And I knew she would. She put new clothes on the minute she bought them. She used her china all the time. She ate the Christmas Chocolates before they had a chance to get stale. She would definitely put the plate out where she could see it all the time.
Roxanne taught me a lot of lessons like this: to not take things for granted, to appreciate beauty whenever you see it, to cherish life and the joys it brings. She lived in the shadow of cancer for eight years and always reminded us to enjoy every sweet gift life had to offer, that we don’t need to wait for special moments to enjoy precious things because all of life is special.
So I used this plate to serve some delicious donuts at my book launch because beautiful things don’t need to be protected in cupboards. Let the beauty out. Celebrate. Let the chips come. Because life is short.
Use the plate.
Leanne Friesen 