The Last Green Pyrex Bowl: Things Meant to Be Used

Vintage Pyrex Primary Colors Nesting Mixing Bowls Set

The day after my granddaughter broke the first—hopefully of many—of my mother’s Duncan glasses, I looked up at the top shelf of my kitchen cabinet and noticed a green bowl.

That bowl was a wedding present for my parents in the 1940s. It’s been around a long time.  

I know it was originally a set of four, because my mother told me and I remember when there were four. This is the last bowl standing.

I have so many memories tied to that green bowl: spaghetti, potato salad, doughdaddles, chicken soup—countless meals my mom served in it. After my mom died, I put the bowl high up in the cabinet and thought, I don’t want this to get broken.

But standing there yesterday, I asked myself a different question, why don’t I want it to get broken?

Who am I saving it for?

I Googled the bowl and confirmed it’s a vintage Pyrex from the 1940s, produced through the 1970s. On a good day, I could probably sell it for thirty dollars. Or someone might pick it up at Goodwill.

The question returned: What am I hanging on to?

Only six people in the world know what that bowl has held. Three of them have dementia.

What exactly am I preserving?

I pulled the bowl down from the shelf and put it in the dishwasher.

It will break eventually.

And when it does, I think I’ll be happy, not sad, knowing it fulfilled its destiny the way it was meant to:

Serving meals.