Odd Trails contains adult language and content.

If you have a story to share, send it to stories at oddtrails.com.

Enjoy the show.

I would like to say, Annalisa's story began when

I was 11 years old.

However, this would not be true as her story began sometime in the late 1700s in the Netherlands.

I only came to know of Annalisa as a young girl when she was gifted to me in the form of an antique

mirror without any knowledge of her existence at this time.

My parents had become close friends with an elderly lady they met through my father's business.

We will call her Mrs. G. Mrs. G soon became like a grandmother to my siblings and I,

so it was not uncommon for her to gift us tokens of her affections.

Often these gifts were items from her motherland, and I always treasured them dearly.

The biggest gift she ever gave me was an antique bedroom set.

It included a bed, a chest of drawers, a vanity, stool, and a mirror.

It was beautiful, made from wood with ornate designs.

It had once been painted white, but the paint was now severely tinged by years of use and had already begun flaking.

This was the year that Shabby Sheik was in style, and so this set matched perfectly and required no

repainting. Mrs. G said that this was her bedroom set as a child, and it was part of the items that

had made the journey to America when she was a little girl. She stated it had been in her family

for a long time, but she did not say how it came to be.

My parents set up my room with the new furniture, and I immediately fell in love with it.

I loved to sit on the velvet-covered stool at the vanity and get ready every morning.

...