The Lost Treasures

Years ago when I had to put my mother in a nursing home to rehab from a fall, I eventually found that her temporary stay needed to be permanent. That was one of the most difficult decisions for my brother and I. The loss of independence is horrific, not only for the person, but for the family also. The family has difficulty with an impending sense of denial. For instance, surely Mom will be alright, she has just had a short term problem and then she can go back home when she is better. Often times that just doesn’t happen. Again often times, the patient adapts easier than the family members.

My mother’s house had to be gone through and cleaned out. She had lived in that house for over thirty years. Her things had to be sorted for keep piles and throw away piles, and sell piles. There were things that needed to be read and sorted. Among the many things I found were love letters that my father sent to my mother before they were married. I had no idea he was such a romantic. I read a few of them and thought I was intruding on their private life and stored them in Mom’s Memory Box where I found them or so I thought. That box had been moved three times before I thought of those letters. I now had time to read them. The letters were gone. I was so disappointed. The contents of the letters helped me know my parents more than you can imagine. Another thing, my parents had always seemed old. They had always had white hair and kind of straight laced; little did I know. The only thing that was missing were the return letters from my mother to my father.

I have been writing stories about material that I found in Mom’s Memory Box this year. Much to my surprise, I found the letters again. I had put them back in the box. They are in perfect condition and are almost eighty years old. In fact they will be this year.

One of the most fun things I discovered was my dad’s sense of humor. He sounded like one of those people you see and hear about in the roaring twenties. This is a quote from him that tickled me. “ Well, hon, I have oceans of love for you and there is a kiss on every wave.” What, that didn’t sound like my dad.

Then I discovered a letter that was written on tablet paper. He wrote a regular letter then he turned it upside down and wrote on the bottom side of the top side. You could hardly read a word of it. At the bottom of the letter he apologized and said that he thought it would be fun to do that.

I am sure you realize that the depression was going on during the thirties when my parents were in love. My father did any job possible to earn enough money to survive. He often worked in the fields, but reading these letters I learned he sold Christmas cards too. He would go house to house peddling these cards. One month he told my mom he had earned five dollars doing this. He also was very verbal with mom about one of his bosses. Oh, he didn’t like him. That just didn’t sound like my dad either. My dad was very laid back and easy going. Oh, I forgot in the thirties my dad was very young, maybe not so easy going.

My dad eventually got a job working for my mom’s dad on the farm. He had been hankering for that job for years. But what kind of thanks is that, you hire a guy to do farm work and he steals your daughter!