My mother will be 90 years old in May and has just moved into her first apartment. Ever. Leaving the house that she was in for nearly 50 years hasn’t been easy, but she’s a funny, strong, courageous lady and she makes the best of a situation. So here I sit, surrounded more and more by the pieces of my family and the home of my youth. I can’t help but be warmed by the trivial and important memories of finding things in the drawers of the dresser below – which we’ve re-purposed into a sideboard of sorts.
Mom and Dad’s jewelry boxes were each in top drawers. The far right-hand drawer held an assortment of scissors, fabric tape measures, cough drop tins, purse-sized Kleenex packs, mini greeting cards, safety pins, double-stick tape, tiny jewelers pliers, any number of small tubes of hand lotion and several plastic rain hats which tied under my mother’s chin.
Dad’s drawers to the left held old eyeglasses, cufflinks, U.S. Postal Service awards, goofy business cards from men he met during the years he sold farm equipment, love notes we’d written him as children, his collection of pig lapel pins, photos of his brothers. After he died in ’84, Mom found a ‘black book’ of his and – with a sick heart – told my brother-in-law to take it away before she even looked at it. It turned out to be his Masonic ritual – my father’s integrity was restored.
lemonpig 