Moving is a major life transition, which can become an emotional process as you rediscover items of sentimental value. It’s an opportunity to access the items coming with you on this journey, and a chance to let go of things that can reach their next highest good.
Faced with a cross country move, from San Francisco to New England, Emmy C. enlisted the support of Next Highest Good to help her prepare and find a new home for an antique cradle that came into her life fifty years ago.
When Emmy and her husband were expecting their first child in 1970, they were living in a no-frills military apartment while he was on active duty in Kentucky. One free day in Lexington, they wandered into a lovely antiques store, attracted by its window display of things from the past that probably had no place in their present. Suddenly they saw it: a dark wood rocking cradle on a raised wheeled base with an attached four-pronged canopy on which rested a puff of transparent netting. A few months later when their first daughter was born, a truck arrived and delivered in her bedroom that gorgeous cradle Emmy had fallen in love with back in Lexington - one of many wonderful surprises from her husband throughout their marriage.
The cradle accommodated a second daughter a few years later and a long succession of house cats who all loved to hop in and sleep on its original horsehair mattress. It knew five other homes during the fifty years of their marriage.
Fast forward to 2020. Emmy was living in San Francisco. Her husband had passed away. When she decided to return to familiar New England, to a tidy, compact house with absolutely no room for the cradle, she felt at a loss for what to do with this deeply meaningful, yet no longer useful item. What could she do with this beloved piece of furniture?
That’s where Lauren and Next Highest Good came in. Through a number of visits, Lauren grew a beautiful connection to Emmy and this cradle. She thought long and hard about its Next Highest Good. Then one day, as she was driving down San Francisco’s Fillmore street, she remembered a baby boutique she had visited when her own child was an infant. So, she emailed the store’s owner to see if she would have any use for the cradle. And to Lauren and Emmy’s delight, the owner was overjoyed about the idea of using Emmy’s cradle as a display case in her store. So, Lauren loaded the cradle into her car and dropped it off on Fillmore Street so it could live its Next Highest Good at Mudpie.
And when Emmy comes back to San Francisco for a visit and misses her cradle, she stops by Mudpie to say hi.
