A Christmas Eve Surprise, A Stack of Love Letters

A Christmas Eve Surprise: A Stack of Love Letters

Painting by Auguste Toulmouche, 1883, The Love Letter, Artremoval.org; Wikipedia

Christmas Eve, the first ever without Mom. Her death, only weeks old, still so raw. I knew I had to be strong, to move on, something even Mom had advised, but this was the first holiday. For all my roaming the world, I'd never established my own family. Part of the reason I'd come home twenty years before, looking for an anchor. Now once again at 70, I was truly all alone, my own old age beginning to feel like the windswept desert of loss I'd heard it could sometimes become.

The living room in my little craftsman house in Portland was cold and dark when I came back from greeting parishioners for services at a nearby church. Religion wasn't really my thing but I'd needed volunteer work to try to fill the hole I felt inside me, all those lifetime connections severed by her death. The activity had helped but now the contrast between my empty house and that of my neighbors, lights all around as they celebrated with their families, hit me hard. I grabbed at the back of the sofa, took another deep breath. Let it in, live it through. Wasn't that what the hospice nurses had counseled?

Went into the spare bedroom where I'd stashed so many of Mom's belongings when I had to move her from her senior apartment after her medical emergency to the nursing home. Looking now for what I didn't know. Some remnant of her, something to hold onto, a piece of her clothing, the pile still on the bed that I hadn't had the heart yet to give away. The little travel pillow nearby that I'd given her one Christmas, that she'd covered with a yellow flannel case she’d sewn herself, a strand still of her brown hair lying there. I picked up the pillow, brought it to my face. The scent, the lavender she loved. I gasped, not expecting it. The pain cut into my ribs.

That's when I spotted the big box where I'd gathered all the things from her desk, her important papers, a 25-gallon clear plastic tub with a blue cover. I remembered thinking at the time, all her hopes and dreams and also Dad's, now gone over 20 years, was that all that was left of them? He hadn't been the easiest of people with his quick temper and old world autocratic ways over their fifty years of marriage. Especially when he put Mom to work at their neighborhood bar, a grueling seven-day-a-week schedule, just like his immigrant folks had done before them. Still, Mom had persisted, making a home for all of us. At Dad's wake, she'd run her hand across his shirt before they closed the casket and promised him, "I will love you forever." All those years of living, those years that formed the framework for my own being, and all that was left before me now was the pillow, some clothing and this box.

Old tax papers, bank books, ledgers. Not much that interested me. So I had thought when I had hurriedly packed it all away. Stuff I'd have to share with the lawyer and accountant. But something made me want to look at it again this lonely Christmas Eve. I put the pillow down on the bed and peeled the blue plastic lid off the tub.

As I remembered, all those papers and documents. I shoveled an armful out onto an open space on the bed. And then another. Layered in was a small black leather wallet, a zipper to keep it closed. Dad's wallet. Rounded, like he had sat on it for years. I unzipped it, found an old driver's license back from their days in Seattle, the picture of the Dad I knew as a kid, the widow's peak of his black hair. Then a fishing license for a senior, free for a lifetime from the state of Oregon, their new retirement home. He was never well enough to use it. Inside one of the little plastic windows, I found a small photo, black and white of Mom and my sister Mary, back when she was just a toddler. Mom standing by her side, an apron over her dress. Tall and thin with dark hair, a smile on her full lips. Mary in a dress with the cutout of a tulip on the front. On the back of the photo, Dad had written, "My girls."

Then an alligator wallet of Mom's, totally empty, like she never used it. Frugal Mom. Must have been special, something she kept in a drawer. But what caught my eye as I piled through yet more papers was the little brown box down at the very bottom. A square brown metal box, about the size of my two hands. Almost as deep as it was wide. It was painted to look like fake brown wood. In all my earlier rush, guess I just hadn't paid attention to it. I'd never tried to open it. The corners were sharp when I reached down and lifted it out.

Now, I looked closely at the box. An old label, pasted on top, touted the fact the box was metal, making it fireproof to safeguard any treasures. That word made my heart beat fast. What treasures could this contain? There was a shiny brass clasp on the front with a keyhole. Where could any key be? But then I noticed a little flare of metal on each side of the keyhole with arrows, indicating you needed to squeeze them together to open the box once it was unlocked.

I cleared a space on the bed and put the box down. I squeezed those sides tight. To my surprise, the box snapped open. Inside, I found the two keys to the box taped to the lid. I have to admit, by then my hands were shaking. Inside, there were two more boxes. A small green velvet jewelry box, about big enough for a pair of earrings. I clicked it open to find two small pins I'd given her long ago from trips I'd once taken, one a silver budgie from Mexico, its wings painted turquoise, the other a gold pin in the form of a flower bouquet, studded with pearls from Japan. I put them back in their box and turned to the second box, a rectangular paper box, about the size of my one hand.

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A Christmas Eve Surprise: A Stack of Love Letters

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