The Wooden Plates (Traditional story from Armenia)
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hen the grandfather was so old and so weak that he couldn’t live on his own, he went to live in his daughter’s house. She was married and had two children, a boy and a girl.
At mealtimes, his pulse was so weak and his hands shook so much that he kept letting the glass fall to the floor or dropping the plate without meaning to, and it kept smashing. His son-in-law was sick and tired of the grandfather’s little breakages at meals, so one day he brought home a set of plates and a glass made of wood for the grandfather so that he wouldn’t break any more crockery. The grandfather accepted his new plates with resignation, sad to see that he had to eat from them every day and not the same ones as his daughter, his son-in-law and his grandchildren. A few days went by and one afternoon, when the daughter and son-in-law went out into the garden, their little children were silent in a corner, absorbed in some seemingly extremely important task. “What are you doing, children?” They both turned to their parents, smiling and proud. “We’re making wooden plates...” “For you two.” Their parents looked at each other in astonishment. “For us?” “Yes, for when you’re old like grandfather and your hands shake...” And from that day on, the grandfather once again ate off a porcelain plate. Like the rest of the family.