One of my first–and fondest– memories is watching Grandma meticulously dust her art glass collection.

Half of the living room wall was built-in shelving holding hundreds of pieces in all shapes and sizes, all in shades of blue. Grandma positioned herself between those shelves and the picture windows across from them to make every piece shine. When I noticed her dusting, little girl me baseball slid across the carpet to lay at her feet. That way, as each and every piece was carefully lifted and inspected, I could see the rainbows that were only visible when she turned them in the sunlight that streamed in.

Bathing in the prismatic colors that magically sprung forth from the blue and the sound of Grandma humming, I swore she brought Heaven down to Earth. Was she an angel? I thought so. After all, she had the blue eyes and blond curls that the angels in the murals at Blooming Valley Methodist portrayed, though I’d later learn that her natural hair color was dark brown. She also had a comforting warmth to her presence that even the softest, coziest blanket would envy. It was no wonder that I was eager to bask in her presence–and eager to add to her collection.

When I was nine, I finally had my chance.

Meadville Mall was leveled in 2016, but when Grandpa took me there to do our Christmas shopping back then? It was crammed full of shoppers, employees, and small vendors that had set up their tables in the middle of the main hallway. We were heading toward K-Mart when I spotted something on one of those peddler’s tables and suddenly stopped, jerking Grandpa to a halt.

There, perched perfectly upon the corner of the table, was a little sapphire blue glass bird.

Eyes wide and transfixed, I dragged Grandpa toward the table, ignoring him cussing under his breath about almost going ass over teakettle. With the same gentle care I watched Grandma handle her delicate treasures, I picked it up, holding it aloft to the anemic fluorescent light overhead. If I squinted, I could make out the ghost of the rainbows contained within. I curiously turned the piece this way and that. Fenton, it said on the bottom. I had no idea what it meant, but apparently it justified the $25 price tag stuck to its belly–something I stubbornly refused to acknowledge since it was too expensive.

“Honey, let’s try to find something else.” Grandpa’s voice softened from the blue language of before upon seeing what caught my eye. A calloused finger ever-so-lightly booped the bird on the end of its beak. “See how the beak is cracked? Maybe we can find–”

“No it isn’t!” The peddler snatched the bird from me, holding it up to the light. Ignoring my wordless sounds of protest, she squinted at it as if she had never seen it before. “It wasn’t cracked this morning. Did you chip it, young lady?”

I fiercely shook my head but, before I could protest, Grandpa’s voice rose to a protective thunderclap as he stepped forward, coming up alongside me to rest a hand on my shoulder.

“Now don’t you accuse her of anything! We both saw how careful she handled it. It ain’t her fault you didn’t notice that ‘til now.” A glance at my trembling lower lip and Grandpa’s jaw set. Usually, Grandpa was a man of mirth and mischief, always good for a laugh–but in that moment? I’m pretty sure the Devil himself would’ve turned tail and ran. He jabbed a finger accusingly at the price tag. “I’ll give you fifteen.”

“Fifteen? That there’s a genuine Fenton piece!” The peddler sputtered, watery gray eyes indignant. She scowled. “I won’t go any lower than twenty!”

“You’ll take fifteen.” There was no room for argument in his tone and, when he crossed his arms over the barrel of his chest, the peddler knew that she’d been beat. One tense exchange of money for bird later and Grandpa was no longer able to hold my hand.

I needed both of mine to cradle my find close to my chest, just like Grandma taught me.

She loved her Christmas gift, of course. In the multi-colored lights of the Christmas tree, the rainbows I swore I saw in the mall’s dingy light were made real. Looking back, I think those rainbows would have danced through the air without any light at all, so long as the little glass bird was in her hands. If she noticed the chipped beak, she didn’t mention it. To her, it was perfect.

When lung cancer stole Grandma away a decade later, the comfort abandoned my childhood home. Gone was the melody of her humming, the warmth of her presence–and while the rainbows still danced when I picked up a piece of her collection and held it up to the sunlight, the colors seemed diminished, as if they needed her presence to show their full strength.

And then one day, when I came back from college to spend the weekend with Grandpa, most of Grandma’s blue glass collection was gone.

In the fathomless depths of his grief, Grandpa had been taken advantage of. My cousin Sarah, a greedy weasel of a woman, had shown up and swindled him out of just about all of Grandma’s pieces with promises to ‘keep them in the family’ and ‘make sure they were passed down’. I suspect she ‘adopted’ anyone willing to pay the right amount of money since I haven’t seen any of what she made off with since. Out of the hundreds of pieces that Grandma owned, only three remained; an imperfect pair of small bells with the hearts atop them delicately slouched off balance.

And a little sapphire blue bird with a chipped beak.

It’s funny, how imperfections are what sometimes save us from being taken by someone who can’t see our value. That’s the lesson I think Grandma would want me to take from this, I think.