Thorny Thursday — The Box

Memories can be very thorny indeed

Image by A.C. Cargill — totally AI free

They were laid out across the mattress, stripped bare of sheets, pillows, and comforter. I stood a moment looking over each item. They were just bits and pieces—nothing that would fetch more than a few cents, a couple dollars at most, in the estate sale. I picked up the stuffed bear holding the stuffed heart that said “I love u” and held it to my nose. The scent was still there—Old Spice. I inhaled deeply.

“I found a box for that stuff,” he said, coming into the bedroom.

I nodded and put the bear back down on the mattress. “Just put it on the chair.”

“Everything else is ready to go,” he said. “Not to rush you, but we have to leave soon.”

“Yeah, sure,” I said, my throat feeling tight.

“What a bunch of junk,” he said. “Not worth bothering with.”

He left the room.

Yeah, junk, not worth bothering with. I picked up a program from the Pat Metheny concert almost three decades earlier. I had tried to stuff it in my purse after the concert. It hadn’t quite fit, and the corner had gotten bent. I smiled and brushed away a tear as it ran down my cheek.

Just junk. Not worth bothering with.

I laid down the program and picked up a silk rose on a long, plastic stem. It was somewhat flattened from the last time we had moved and I had packed it in with some books at the last minute. I knew it had no scent, but held the rose to my nose anyway and heaved a sigh. Then I placed it in the box.

One by one, I examined the other items on the bed and then placed them in the box.

“All done?” he asked, returning to the room.

“Yeah, all done.”

I watched him close the box flaps, pick up the box, and head to the bedroom door.

“Come on, Mom, we’re late,” he said. “I can drop this off at the Goodwill store on our way from the cemetery to the senior community.”

I stood staring at the box.

My son set it down and hugged me as I struggled to hold back the tears. It was all too much—the funeral, the burial, the move out of our house, arranging the estate sale. This is not how I had thought my “golden years” would be. But here I was. And my son and his wife, as helpful and caring as they had tried to be, weren’t really all that comforting. And it was natural. Their lives were ahead of them. Their view of the road of life was all sunshine and high hopes. Mine was all looking backward, seeing that sunshine and hope behind me with only gray clouds ahead.

I straightened up, dried my eyes, and said, “Okay, let’s go.”

We went outside. My daughter-in-law was already in the car, sitting in the front passenger seat and talking on her cell phone. My son put the box on the back seat behind her. I sat behind the driver’s seat and put a hand gently, reverently on the box. My son drove us to the cemetery, shrugging when his wife asked what had taken so long.

He parked the car and got out, opened my door and waited as I got out. His wife got out and carried the bouquet of flowers. She walked around the car and the three of us went together to the grave. She handed me the bouquet, and I placed it gently in the vase in front of the headstone.

“Keep the box!”

I was kneeling by the vase and now looked up and around.

“What?” I asked my son.

He looked confused. “I didn’t say anything.”

“Keep the box!” came the voice again, definitely male.

I looked back at the grave. “What?”

“Keep the box!”

“Really?” I said to the headstone, feeling a little silly.

“Yes, dear heart.”

My eyes filled with tears. He had first called me that when we had gone to that Pat Metheny concert, and I had fallen asleep, my head on his shoulder. “Wake up, dear heart,” he had whispered. The concert had been over, and people were leaving. I had grinned sheepishly and stood with him, making our way out of the concert hall.

“Thanks,” I said to the headstone.

“The future isn’t just gray clouds,” said the voice. “There is still sunshine and hope. So, keep the box.”

I nodded and stood up, wiping dirt off the knees of my slacks.

“I’m keeping the box,” I told my son.

He looked back at me, failing to keep an expression of annoyance off his clean-shaven, square-jawed face. He looked so much like his father at that moment. I swallowed hard.

“Mom, your apartment at the senior community is stuffed full now. You said you were going to sort things—cut some of it down.”

“I know—I know—but, well, some of those things are all I have of him.”

“But Mom—” He stopped, seeing determination on my face. He nodded, and we returned to the car.

I sat in the back seat, pulling the box closer. A life was in there—a life full of ups and downs. I wouldn’t see it chucked away, not while there was still a breath in me.