Blue Mason Jars - A Treasure from Gran

This morning I started sorting through my jars in an effort to take an inventory before canning season hits. Good grief, I've got jars scattered everywhere - in the kitchen, the cupboards, the pantry, the basement, and the garage. The good news is that I have a lot more jars than I had thought, and should only have to invest in new flats this year.

In the process of checking shelves in the garage, I found a treasure. There were two boxes high up and out of sight, which were both marked with my name and "glass." I'm pretty sure that they came to me after my grandpa passed, nearly 11 years ago. I was hoping to find some good pints or maybe mayo jars. Instead, I found something that made my heart stop for a beat. It seems I had never opened those boxes because I was astonished by what I found inside. They were packed with all of my Gran's blue glass canning jars! I couldn't fight back the tears, holding those jars in my hands, memories of the sights and smells of Gran's pantry flooding through me - the creaky wooden stairs leading down to rows upon rows of food, the damp smell of the dirt floor, the monster I was convinced was hiding in the dark corners. But I had to laugh when I read the note that my aunt had written on the inside of one of the box flaps, "wash them yourself, taken from the top of grandma's fridge."