I’m a collector of things. You know, books, rescue animals, random debilitating phobias. The normal stuff. So, it shouldn’t come as surprise to you when I express how important it was to me to have a ‘thing’, an item, from each of my now departed grandparents to remind me of them.

With that in mind I had this blog post idea. I was going to tell you about this one special item. So special, that I could text my sister and unprompted she would respond without questioning what I was talking about. This is how that went…

For an item we fought over for literal years her response was anticlimactic to say the least.

There are few items that were in my grandparents’ home that stand out more to me as always being there and also as simply, ‘them’. This ceramic fish lived in their bathroom and I’m not sure why an item that spent its life in an intimate relationship with the toilet is one we all fought over, but here we are. And, as big sisters usually do, mine won this fight and got the fish.

A few months ago I was at my local florist’s and they had ‘gurgle pots’. I saw a baby blue one up on the top shelf and gasped out loud when I saw it. It reminded me so much of THE fish, but ever better because it makes this obnoxious gurgling, plopping sound when you pour water from it. A sound I know my grandpa would have found absolutely hilarious. It’s not THE fish, but reminds me of the fish, and for me, that’s good enough.