When Rhoda Keller died, all three of her daughters knew she wouldn't want them to fight over any of her belongings, not even the yellow bowl.

"It's a darned shame that some people are so greedy," Rhoda used to say. "I hate it when people fight over their inheritance. Nothing in the world is worth a family fight." There was so much bitterness in the families after Rhoda's own mother died that her siblings would barely talk to each other anymore. Rhoda mourned the alienation from her brothers and sisters almost as much as she did losing their mother. "I sure don't want you girls fighting over any of my stuff."

"We won't, Mom," Carrie would say, "except over the yellow bowl." Then the sisters would all laugh.

The little yellow pottery bowl had come overland from Ohio in a covered wagon--a gift from their great-great-grandmother to their great-grandmother. It was special to Rhoda and became special to each of the girls in turn as they grew old enough to appreciate its history.

"Your great-grandmother Cecily carried that little bowl in her hands all the way from Ohio. It was a special gift to her from her own mother. When she left with her husband on the wagon train, she knew she would probably never see her mother again, and that was a daily reminder that her mother still loved her. That bowl was a memory of the life she was leaving behind and a symbol of hope for a new life in the frontier."

The bowl had sat in a place of honor on the fireplace mantel all of their growing-up years, and each of the girls coveted the yellow bowl for her own.

Rhoda was a feisty lady. She was heartbroken when her husband passed away, but that didn't stop her from taking swimming and painting lessons, making new friends, and busying herself with volunteer work. She also had a passion for garage sales, estate sales, secondhand and antique stores that none of her girls shared. They just couldn't quite understand her delight in poking around in dusty old stores, but that didn't stop Rhoda. She had a dozen friends who loved antiques, and they'd go off happily scouring every secondhand store within driving distance. "I have no intention of letting the girls become my life," she used to say. "They have lives of their own to live."

Rhoda developed cancer when she was 89 years old, and the girls worried about her dying in pain, but instead she died quietly in her sleep one night--just went to bed, and in the morning, didn't wake up. It was sudden but not unexpected since she’d had several small strokes that year. The girls missed her like crazy but they were very grateful that her cancer hadn't grown painful.

There was a lot of work to do to settle their mom's estate, and the sisters spent several weeks working at their mom's house, sorting out things they wanted to keep, donating things to the Salvation Army, cleaning and painting to get the house ready to sell. For years, the sisters hadn't spent much time together--too busy with their own families-- and now they found themselves enjoying each other's company immensely. They divided most of their mom's belongings without any difficulty, but each of them knew they still had to make a decision about the little yellow bowl.

"Well," said Cecily one morning, "are you guys ready to take on the battle of the yellow bowl?"

Carrie shrugged. "Might as well," she said. "We're going to fight. I know it."

"I'm ready," said Maryann. "I got my boxing gloves on."
She started tearing the tape off the box labeled "yellow bowl."

"Should we draw straws to see who gets the bowl?"

"I’d lose," Cecily wailed. "I've never won a thing in my life."

"You know Mom would hate for us to fight over it," Carrie said.

"Look," whispered Maryann. "Maybe this is silly, but let's pray over the decision."

The girls joined hands, bowed their heads, and each in turn asked God to bless their families and help them to make a decision about the little yellow bowl that would honor their mother's love for them.

When they looked up, Maryann said , "Before you open the package, let me say something. I'd be willing to give up the bowl if I could have Grandma's favorite letter opener."

"That’s not fair to you, Maryann," Cecily cried. "You're the oldest. If anyone deserves the bowl, you do."

"I don't think it has anything to do with who deserves it," Maryann said. "We all deserve it. Just because I was born first doesn't make it any more mine than anyone else's."

"I don't even want it," Carrie said flippantly. "It doesn't match a thing I own."

"Oh, knock it off, Carrie. You know and I know that you'd redecorate your whole kitchen around that bowl if you had it. Mom didn't like liars anymore than she liked fighting."

Carrie blushed. "Okay, so you found me out. Maybe Cecily should have it. She was named after great-grandma."

The three girls stared at each other. They hadn't really been close when they first started working to divide their mom's things, but somehow they'd grown closer during that time and now none of them wanted to hurt the others.

Maryann sighed. "Let's open the box and look at it. Maybe that'll tell us something."

"Maybe we should just pass the bowl around, like a team bowling trophy. We could rotate. It can go home with Maryann the first six months, then six months at Carrie's house, and then finally six months at my house. That way we all get to have it--and Mom will sleep peacefully, knowing we aren't fighting."

"That's a great idea," Maryann said, and Carrie nodded in agreement. "I like that idea better than drawing straws."

Then Cecily tore open the wrapping, peeked inside the box --and looked stunned.

"I don't believe this," she said, tipping the box so the others could see, too.

In the box were three little yellow bowls, all exactly alike. The sisters took the bowls out and examined them closely. Carrie tipped them over to look at the markings on the bottom. Even the markings were exactly the same.

All three of the sisters burst into laughter.

"That Mom of ours. I'll bet she had to work like crazy to find two other yellow bowls exactly like the one great-grandma brought from Ohio. She really didn't want us to fight, did she?"

"Where do you suppose she found the other two?"

"That's probably why she haunted second-hand stores for years before she died. I thought she was looking for antique frames for her paintings."

"Tricky old lady, wasn't she? Can you imagine keeping this secret?"

"Oh, but now we'll never know which of these bowls came west in the covered wagon with Great-Grandma Cecily, will we?"

"No," Maryann said, "but you know, I guess it really doesn't matter. Each of these bowls is a precious symbol of our mother's love for us. I'd be proud to have any one of them."

"Me, too," Carrie said.  

Copyright ©2000 Betty Lubinski.  All Rights Reserved