One evening three years ago, while living in Arizona, I was talking to my youngest daughter about the cookie jar that used to sit on my Grandma Hazel’s counter. With my eyes closed, I could vividly see the tiny kitchen where she had spent so much time baking and cooking.

“Her cookie jar had a pink heart on it and was covered with cutout cookies,” I said.

“Like this?” she asked showing me a picture that she had googled.

“That’s exactly it! Where did you find it?”

“I looked it up under ‘cookies all over cookie jar’.”

We went on to read that it had been manufactured in the 1950s by a Japanese company named Napco and given away as a premium gift. Back then, if a housewife saved up enough stamps from purchasing certain items, she could buy a gift for free. Most of the jars for sale on Ebay were either damaged or too highly priced.

I kept looking online once in awhile as the idea would come and go. Last year, during the early summer, I began to think of it again and searched for something that would be affordable and in good shape. As I looked at various pictures by sellers, I was transported back to her house and the days when I would come in from swimming in the community pool that was across the alley. We always took advantage of a swim as she didn’t have air conditioning in her old house. North Dakota summers can get extremely hot especially in July so a soak in cold water could keep a kid cooled off for awhile.

I was usually greeted on her back porch with a glass full of cherry kool-aid and peanut butter cookies from the jar on the counter. It seemed as if that jar never was empty even though we ate one cookie after another. It was as if by magic it refilled itself.

During the time she was moved from her home into assisted living, items were auctioned off, and I regrettably did not ask for it as a keepsake. My hunt to own one was slightly marred by the fact that it wouldn’t be the original from my grandma’s house, but at least I could have the good memories to go with it.

One night about a week before my birthday last year, I began my search again in earnest. I thought it would be special to have it as a gift, but my pursuit was coming up short. Exasperated, I looked up to heaven and said,

“Grandma, if you want me to have this cookie jar, then bring it to me!” I closed my eyes and saw myself standing in her kitchen next to the cookie jar on the counter. In my imagination, picked it up and held it in my hands.

Before clicking out the light, I did one last search. Up popped a seller in Mesa, Arizona. I was surprised because moments before, it had not been there at all. The next day, I passed on the information to my best friend who has relatives in that area. After a few attempts on his part to contact the seller, we thought it had been sold because she wasn’t returning his calls.

I made the decision to drop the idea. If I was to have it, I would. I was not going to struggle anymore to get it. My birthday came and went without the jar in my possession, but I had completely put it out of my mind. In October, I drove to the airport to pick up my friend from his short stay in Arizona. When we arrived at his house, he got out of his car and said,

“I have something for you in the trunk.” I knew he had gone to the massive flea market that they have in Mesa so I said,

“Did you get me some of those really good scrubber things for dishes? Mine are getting old.”

He opened his trunk, pulled out a carry on bag and unzipped it. From where I stood, I just saw a bunch of his socks. My first thought was that some laundry needed to be done. I was shocked when he pulled out the possession I had been so desperately seeking.

“Happy Birthday,” he said handing it to me.

I could not comprehend that I was actually holding it in my hands with the matching lid that has a walnut on top. He had gotten in touch with the woman in Arizona who hadn’t returned his calls.

“She had this in a box labeled ‘Grandma’ and she told me that no one wanted it.” A coincidence that it had that label? I think not.

It was long past my July birthday, but the gift came at just the right time. My mom had been admitted to the hospital a few days earlier with complications due to a severe case of shingles. I had been running back and forth to visit her multiple times, and getting little to no sleep. As I had sat by her bedside watching her rest, I had often thought of my grandma and how she and my mom had kept in touch while living so far apart. They had written letters back and forth to each other over many years until her death. I felt her presence so strongly as I sat during the quiet times in my mom’s room.

Every morning I wake up, look across my bedroom and see the jar sitting on my shelf. (I am that protective of it..it will never be near the kitchen.) And I often wonder, where did the desire come from to track this down? Was it my own or did someone who dearly loves me from the other side want me to remember those hot, happy summers that we spent with one another? To some it would be an antique, and to others it would be perhaps an ugly piece of ceramic. But, to me, it is Grandma’s magical jar.

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