Ancel’s tangle of electronics and cords were gathered up after his visit. My lowly charger must have appeared to be just another USB with a wall plug, so whoosh, into his bag it went.
My prayers to the finding gods had gone unanswered. It hid among its companions until I had a bright idea… it may have come from the finding gods, who knows. I thought to ask Ancel directly. “Ancel! Do you have my phone charger per chance?” With a clear sense of what belongs to him and what doesn’t, he responded, “Oh! Is it a USB with a wall plug?”
“Yes, yes,” I nearly screamed (but didn’t since we were sitting in a public place and I didn’t want to sound accusatory). “It’s in my tech drawer,” he said calmly, not being cognizant of the suffering I had been experiencing. “Your tech drawer? Where is your tech drawer?”
I tried to sound calm but I wanted to run to his “tech drawer” and steal away my charger, charge my phone and once again be connected to my world, but I had to wait. Ancel wasn’t going home quite yet.
At last I had dinner with Jesse, Hannah, and Enora. I was happy for dinner and the great company, but I knew that my charger would be with them, which added to my joy. At the end of the evening, Hannah pulled out a tangle of USBs and a wall plug that had been pulled from the “tech drawer.” We identified mine from the bunch, and now my phone is cooking beside my bed once again, reunited with its lifeline, and I with mine.
Just recently, I found the answer to a mystery I had given up on resolving many years before. I mostly didn’t even know that I was still looking, but the search was hidden away in my heart to emerge only occasionally.
There were few things of value that I even cared about because Mom left so little behind. But there were a few of precious value to the heart only. Nothing she ever owned was embued with monetary value.
But there was one mystery to solve, known only to me as, “The Missing Heart.” I would have found the answer if I had known to ask the right people. Why did the loss of this small charm occur to me again? Oh, yes, I remember! My niece, Sharon, was going through her mother’s (my sister’s) jewelry and came upon a bracelet she didn’t recognize, and neither did I.
I asked if among her things, had she come upon a small silver and marcasite heart with a mother of pearl inset? At first, I couldn’t remember the stones, so it was hard to describe. Her first answer was, “No”, she said, but she would keep an eye out for it.
I looked online to see if I could at least find something similar to help her identify it. Why did I even care, you might ask. Because, as a small child, like all curious children will, I loved to look in my mother’s jewelry boxes and in her top drawer to see her linen hankies and soft gloves of silk, cotton and leather, small veils of soft netting, hat pins, hair barretts and other small pieces and mementos.
On top of her dresser, among the crystal bowls, was her hair brush, a handheld mirror, and containers of face and body powder and fancy glass bottles of perfume and fragrant lotions.
There, also sat my favorite music box. It was a small wooden piano with just enough room to hold a few small pieces of jewelry.
The music box
Mom’s dresser was always dusty with the powders she used liberally. Her favorite perfume was Tweed. The fragrance is strong, with the tiniest bit of floral notes to keep it feminine, but mostly, it is dark, moody and earthy, woody, and resinous. Perfect for Mom, but not for a small child or even a teenager. I was never tempted to use it, but it smelled spectacular on my loving yet stoic mother.
But, back to the heart.
I sent my nephews and neices online images of similar items. Sharon said she would continue to look. She said she would also ask the other girls. My sister had three girls and four boys that she left behind way too early. She also said that there was a story that went with that heart, if the one I was looking for was one that she remembered. I didn’t remember any such story.
Not long after, another of Kristi’s three daughters, Shauna, sent a message with a photo of the heart. “Is this the one you’ve been looking for, Auntie?” she wrote. I couldn’t believe my eyes.
There it was! She explained that her mother had given it to her, before she passed away, to wear at her wedding. Sarah, one of the three daughters, now had it to wear at her upcoming wedding.
She went on to explain the story behind the heart, a story I had never heard: It was a gift from Mom’s first love. If that’s true, why hadn’t I heard it?
I should have been happy just to know that it was still in the family… but. I wasn’t. I was hurt, confused, and frustrated. When did Mom give that to Kristi? Not known to lie nor even to be secretive, could Kristi and Mom have kept this gift giving a secret? When did this even take place?
I couldn’t be upset with the girls, and of what use is it now for me to be angry with Mom and Kristi, now that they passed on years ago. I decided to sit with the feeling. I couldn’t shake it anyway.
Now, after a couple of weeks, I guess I’m happy that the heart is in safe and loving hands. Somethings I’ll never know, like when or why Mom decided to give the heart to Kristi. We were and are a close and loving family. I know also that Mom and Kristi hadn’t between them, an ounce of secretive intent.
Each of the girls wore the necklace at their wedding, and if I had it, it would have been enjoyed and cherished by only me.
“I beg you to have patience with everything unresolved in your heart and to try to love the questions themselves as if they were locked rooms or books written in a very foreign language. Don’t search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.”
–Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet (1929)
I came upon this book while scrolling one day. The cover grabbed me as did the overview… “good as Stephen King”, they said. I’ve never read horror, nor Stephen King but I was fascinated by the tags: #fairy tales, #horror. Then I lost it and couldn’t remember title or author.
Friends helped me search but no luck. I turned to bookstores explaining that I knew nothing about it except there was a scary pen and ink drawing of a hare on the jacket. Though they tried, no one could help me.
Finally, on a trip in Arizona, I went into the “Quail Run” bookstore in Green Valley, where the man at the counter made a few research attempts when I asked, “Can you help me find this book? Nope, no author name and no title”. As expected, he came up with nothing. But, as I turned to leave, he said, “Wait, my wife might be able to help”.
If I relied on looks, I never would have pegged her as a researcher. As she walked up the aisle, she might have been a waitress or a hairdresser maybe: long nails, even longer eyelashes, bleached and permed hair, skin tight jeans and t-shirt and skinny as a rail.
Soon, “Miss Quail Run” was at the computer tapping away. “No, nope, no, thats not it”, I said as she offered this one and another. Her husband, now not so sure said, “Welp, we tried…” She cut him off and said with a wink, “Don’t be so hasty. I’m not ready to give up yet, are you?”.
I was happy that I had found someone willing to try harder. Why, I wondered since the book I was looking for was way out of my “comfort genre”, did I care so much whether she found it or not? She kept tapping and asking the same question while I kept repeating, “no, nope”.
Suddenly, she said, “Look at this”. There on the screen was a YouTube video with a woman holding up two books. The images were tiny but as she zoomed in, there it was, the illusive book I had been looking for. Winterset Hollow, by Jonathon Edward Durham. I knew she had found it only because of the freaky, very freaky, hare on the cover.
My companions heard me yelp from the back of the store. When I asked her how she found it, she simply said, “I’ve always had a knack”. She explained that since she was little she could always find things.
Unfortunately, they didn’t have any in stock but not to fear, Amazon is here to save the day. Tracy (daughter) ordered 2 copies, one for me and one for her. Perhaps, I have found a new genre to enjoy. We’ll see if it was worth all the trouble that me and several other people went through just to find a book based only on a drawing on a book jacket.
It just goes to show that in research it’s best to not ever give up…. nor judge a book by its cover like I did with the “diner waitress” looking researcher. She was a crackerjack!!!
I finally retired in October 2014. Kristi had retired about a year before me. One day we met for coffee at an intimate, neighborhood cafe in Woodstock to celebrate.
We bought these cups as a symbol of our promise to be companions as we aged, to take trips together and maybe even one day to live together. Little did we know that within just two weeks, she would die in a terrible car accident.
Kristi’sMine
Two days ago I was drinking coffee out of my cup and I thought about these promises we made to one another. I wondered if Kristi’s kids had found her cup amongst her things.
I sent them a message and in a short time, I got a message back from Sharon, her oldest daughter, with a photo of the cup saying that she drinks out of it often.
I cried for loss but also for gladness. A girl could not have had a better sister. My memories of her span 64 years, so they are many.
When she was only 3 years old, I contracted polio, and for the rest of our time together, she did for me what I could not do for myself. She was my confidant. She was my buddy. She was my heart.
I miss her so. When I drink from her promise cup, my heart fills to overflowing. I’m so happy to know that my promise cup to her still exists.
I finally retired in October 2014. My sister, Kristi, had retired about a year before me. One day we met for coffee at an intimate cafe in Woodstock to celebrate.
Kristi’sMine
We bought these cups as a symbol of our promise to be companions as we aged, to take trips together and maybe even one day to live together. Little did we know that within just two weeks, she would die in a terrible car accident.
Two days ago I was drinking coffee out of my cup and I thought about these promises we made to one another. I wondered if Kristi’s kids had found her cup amongst her things.
I sent them a message and in a short time, I got a message back from Sharon, her oldest daughter, with a photo of the cup saying that she drinks out of it often.
I cried for loss but also for gladness. A girl could not have had a better sister. My memories of her span 64 years, so they are many.
When she was only 3 years old, and I was only 5, I contracted polio, and for the rest of our time together, she did for me what I could not do for myself. She was my confidant. She was my buddy. She was my heart.
I miss her so. When I drink from her promise cup, my heart fills to overflowing. I’m so happy to know that my promise cup to her still exists.
Kristi gave me this scarf for my birthday on September 13, 2014. It was a warm evening and we were sitting in the glow of the candles on my front porch with Steve and Dee and Dhillon. We were sipping on gin and tonics and laughing about everything. Kristi knew that I loved handmade things, so she had this made for me. I hugged her and kissed her and cried. Her birthday was coming up in five days and I hadn’t planned anything for her yet, but we were planning a trip to the beach and I would get her something then. Something that she would choose.
How lucky we were. She was retired and my retirement had started just two weeks before. We had plans galore and she didn’t know it but I was hoping that one day we would be two old women sharing a house together.
That night we didn’t know that we had only the next 30 days with her. She was suddenly swept out of our lives, forever. You can only imagine what this scarf means to me.
This morning as I bundled up to take Yum Yum out for a walk, my scarf was not on the shelf with my hats and gloves, so I grabbed one of Hannah’s, figuring that I had worn mine upstairs where I might have left it.
Yum Yum and I had traveled about nine blocks, and there was my scarf, lying in the grass, strewn with twigs and leaves. “What?? That’s my scarf.” I quickly picked it up, expecting it to be wet and dirty and at least smelling like a dog or two had left their territorial mark on it. But no, it smells sweet like a cold and fresh autumnal morning.
Ancel said there was a force field protecting it. Yum and I never walk the same way twice but this morning, we passed where my scarf lay waiting for me.
eyeamdust 