It started with a box.
Tucked behind her winter coats in the attic, wrapped in a faded floral scarf and sealed with decades of quiet, was a cedar chest I’d never seen open.
Curious, I lifted the lid.
Dust swirled in the slanted afternoon light — golden, slow, like time itself was breathing.
And there, nestled in tissue paper like buried treasure, were slender glass tubes, cool and delicate as dragonfly wings.
They shimmered — amber, citrine, emerald — each one tipped with a tiny, intricate hook.
At first, I didn’t understand.
Were they forgotten Christmas tinsel?
Cocktail stirrers from a long-ago party?
Some odd craft supply she’d saved “just in case”?
But as I held one gently between my fingers, something shifted.
It wasn’t clutter.
It wasn’t forgotten.
It was care — crystallized.
And in that moment, I finally understood:
👉 These were insulin vials and syringes from the 1950s.
My grandmother’s lifeline.
💉 A Silent Struggle, Hidden in Plain Sight
