“Life can only be understood looking backward. It must be lived forward.” from 'The Curious Care of Benjamin Button'

A button is not something we think about much these days. Buttons are utilitarian, a must. We lose them. We find them. We sew them back on and away we go.

But yesterday as I watched 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button', the opening credits held a frame with a cascade of buttons of all shapes and sizes. One by one they fell, until the whole screen was a sea of buttons. The movie was lovely and I recommend it. But my memory today is not of Brad Pitt or the amazing actors who told this unusual story originally created by F. Scott Fitzgerald. My memory is of my grandmother.

My grandmother was poor by the world's standards. Her house was small, warmed by coal heat as so many were in the area. It had been added onto once or twice, not by architects who measured and planned well, but by regular folks who knew how to build what needed to be built to serve a purpose. I would go to her house for over -nights and we would  make fudge and work thousand piece puzzles, snuggled by the coal burner. She lived most of the life in which I knew her, alone, my grandfather having died when I was very young. I looked forward to those visits because they often included playing with the button box.

The button box was kept by her sewing machine. It contained hundreds of buttons…small ones, large ones, mostly ordinary ones. But nestled in the box were also buttons made of mother-of-pearl, or rhinestone buttons that looked like diamonds. There were colorful buttons in the shape of flowers, or little sailboats for, perhaps, a sailor dress. I would pour the buttons onto a tray and look at them, like someone panning for gold. Often I would ask if I could take a certain one home and, being given permission, would tuck the treasure in my pocket.

Buttons are ordinary things. But my grandmother's button box provided, for me, a glimpse into the mystery of her life before her face was loose with wrinkles. As I fingered those rhinestone buttons, I imagined what she must have had that carried those shiny ornaments. Where did she wear it? What was she like when she was young and wearing glamorous clothes?

As children, none of us can really know our grandparents or parents as they were known by their peers. We cannot imagine them carefree, or cool,or staying out all night dancing till dawn in the arms of someone we've never met. We can only see them through our relationship with them.Those of us who are parents are reminded daily of this fact.

The button box now lives in our attic. It is one of the only things I asked for after her death. I'm glad I have it for it holds the ordinary and the extraordinary, the known and the mystery, the plain and the fancy, all a part of my grandmother's life. Just as it is for each of us.