88 And Falling in Love With Buttons After All

My mother saw her mother and sister actively involved in "all things button" ever since the late 1940s or early 1950s. Mom thought many of them were pretty, but never had an interest in collections of any kind. Well, things changed this winter while she was at our house! Watching me sort, card, list, and sell her sister's buttons made a profound impact on her life. She would look through buttons as I worked, find something of interest and ask me about it: "Look at this!" or "What do you think of that one?" I could see that she was finding it more and more difficult to see her sister's buttons go. I think the newly found love was growing out of grief. Holding the buttons in her hand was comforting, in a way. Ultimately, Mom made her first tray of buttons around her 88th birthday. The tray is pictured here with each button representing something about family. Some of her buttons are from my collection, some were her sister's, and a few were her mother's.  Now they are hers, and she is writing a story about them. My mother is a remarkable woman in many ways and one of the things I admire most about her is that she hasn't allowed advancing age to keep her from discovering new joys in life. I wonder if anyone else has started a collection at her age?