Treasures

My mom spent her last year living in a tiny house in my back yard. That’s a lie, but it’s easier than saying she lived with me for almost a year, until I felt I could no longer keep her safe, then in a nursing home until she became very ill and passed away. Those are really the only details I have. Hospice via Medicare is a wonderful program, but I’m not sure if most people understand the particulars. Hospice is for making people comfortable, not for curing them. My mom’s nurse thought maybe she had suffered a stroke. All the signs seemed to agree though Medicare elected not to test her. What would the reason be in knowing the problem with no intent to solve? The point in all of this is more about the aftermath of losing a parent. I am still going through boxes and finding my mother’s treasures. Each time I think I’ve boxed everything up, there’s always something else to find. This past week was a doozy.

My big kids are taking a turn at life in Grandma’s house as they await their next life steps. I am beyond ecstatic to have my own grandchildren living so near me. They’ve been in Houston for nearly a decade. I’ve never been the day in day out kind of grandmother that I was blessed to have. I waited until the 11th hour on that final clean out, so certain there was no more than an afternoon’s worth of sorting and cleaning to be done. On day 7, I realized my error. I’ve been very candid about my mother’s fight with Alzheimer’s disease. She would want me to reveal all the secrets and tell all the stories to help others. Sorting through the possessions of a dementia sufferer are much different than going through the things left behind by someone who lives to a ripe old age like my father. There’s no rhyme or reason to where things could be found or stored. Books must be turned hither and yon, held by their spines and shaken ever so gently so the decades of photos and years of funeral programs tucked into the pages can fall softly into your lap. What looks like an empty box could be a lifetime of costume jewelry. DVD cases could contain DVDs but are more likely to house a collection of silver dollars or precious newspaper clippings. It’s a scavenger hunt for emotions. That is how, under my mother’s bed, tucked in the recesses of an early 80s briefcase, I found two things I have been searching for: my mother’s recipe for homemade ice cream and my grandmother’s chocolate cake.

The briefcase was locked. Instant sadness. I mean, locked things contain precious things, right? My only child brain kicked into high gear. My birthday was the key. Push, pop. Push, pop. The metal tabs clicked outward against my palms. I opened the lid. Just a single notebook. This can’t be. Who would lock a spiral notebook in a vinyl briefcase and put it underneath their bed? At this point, I was all too accustomed to the nonsensical organization habits courtesy of Alzheimer’s. This was not going to yield anything important. Still, the notebook had to be checked thoroughly. The first thing I noticed were the letters SFGTD written in permanent marker on the cover. It stands for “stuff for God to do.” Every page was filled with my mother’s beautiful handwriting and dedicated to a different person. My mother had written her prayers for each of us for the better part of 2 years. She prayed for one son’s new job. She prayed for my daughter’s dance tryouts. She prayed for another son’s teenage temper. She prayed for my 6-yearold stepson’s new school year, for my commute, and for my husband’s career. She prayed for her neighbor’s illness and her friend’s finances. She prayed for all of us, over and over and over again. Toward the end of the notebook, as we pro-gressed into 2008, my mother took up several pages praying for the surgeon that performed my daughter’s open-heart surgery. I sat there, reading every word, crying over all the prayers that had been answered and the one that had not. And there, behind the prayers and the handwritten lyrics to Amazing Grace were two extremely yellowed index cards with the best recipes of my childhood.

My 7-year-old granddaughter has been here for a week. She has an independent streak that would make Katniss Everdeen look like a wimp. She isn’t scared of the dark. She isn’t scared of monsters. She can tame feral cats, catch frogs, and bait her own hook. And, she loves to cook. This week we made that chocolate cake. On a day where there were moving boxes and lots of commotion, we gathered around my kitchen island and sang her culinary praises for a job well done with minimal assistance from me. As everyone retired for the evening, there was a knock at my bedroom door. “Look, Didi. Look what my mom found behind the couch. It’s a ring.” There, on her little index finger perched an old ring of my mother's, with tiny diamonds nestled in tinier gold settings. “You keep it, sweetheart. Your great grandmother sees you wearing that ring, and she is so happy you found it.” Her response was perfect. “Maybe she left treasure just for me.” That’s the thing about treasures. Sometimes it’s the bearing witness that yields the best gift.