Blue and white flannel nightgown

I have a blue and white toile flannel nightgown. It's too big and missing all its buttons, but I still wear it with a tank top under it (because it truly is missing all its buttons). It's way too hot to sleep in, but I do. It's old-timey and so big on me that sometimes as I sleep, my arm actually wriggles out of the arm hole and I wake up with my arm out the front of the, remember it's buttonless, gown. The quality is amazing, except for the whole button thing. It's a very beautiful, extraordinary weight of slightly ribbed flannel and the toile pattern is scattered across the white background delicately. It is, by far, the loveliest nightgown I've ever owned, even in flannel. But none of these things really matter that much to me. I wear this nightgown because it was my grandmother's.
when she died, my mother brought me this gown. Someone had remembered that I always loved it. It was just so HER. Luxurious and beautiful, a certain amount of vanity that goes with a beautiful nightgown and certainly my grandmother was put together at all times. I'll bet she even wore jewelry with this gown when she went to bed. When I wear it, I wonder when and where she bought it or was it a gift? Did she wear it all the time or save it for traveling? Did she regret the flannel-ness of it because it is so darn hot? Or did she like its coziness? What did she dream when she wore this gown? This gown represents her so well to me, and I feel blessed to have it. But it makes me wonder...would she ever have imagined me treasuring that gown? I wonder what keepsakes she wanted me to remember her by. I have a few pieces of her jewelry, and she was definitely into jewelry, so that is probably what she'd expect me to treasure. And I do.
What will my grandchildren treasure of mine? Just the thought of grandchildren gives me the shivers. What a blessing this cycle of life is. I'm stunned to be forty, that I have a teen-ager, that I'm grown up, even. And perhaps that nightgown lets me feel smaller and younger again, wrapped in some part of my grandmother. Gone ten years now, remembering her presence reminds me of a younger self, still dreaming of who I would become. I wonder what she'd have to say about that.