Nanas Journal

After Nana’s passing, our family just wanted to go about their lives and mourn in their own ways or just resume life as normal. Nana was old and everyone expected this to happen sooner or later; well, everyone other than Julia. Julia was the only grandchild and her and Nana were close, Julia looked at her more as a mother than a grandmother. Julia spent more time at her grandmother’s house than she did at home because her parents had to work all the time. As everyone else stayed home and went about their lives, Julia decided to go spend the last three days, before Nana’s house went up for auction, in her childhood home and to start collecting all her grandmother’s belongings. As Julia pulled down the long driveway that led to Nana’s Victorian style home, memories flooded her mind, memories of her and Nana playing in the yard and racing down the driveway. Nana use to be so active before she got sick, she and Julia did everything together and all her firsts were in that beautiful Victorian home. Julia parked the car and just sat there staring at the house, remembering how Nana use to take her to, what Nana called, her secret library. It was in that library that Julia learned to love books, reading and writing them. She decided then that the library is where she would start with packing; the books were not worth much nowadays, but they were like gold to her. The library was dark and felt cold, with every wall covered in books and journals from past family members. As she started to turn the lights on and open boxes to pack up all her favorite books, she stumbled across Nana’s typewriter and in it was a note addressed to Julia.

“My dearest granddaughter, if you’re reading this I am gone. I could not fight the sickness any longer. I know it is your dream to write a novel and publish it, but that takes time and money. You have so much time to fulfill your dream but as your parents are not willing to support it and help you with the money, I left something behind, but it does not come with ease. In this library is a book of clues as to what you have been left in my passing. I love you Julia. Until we meet again. Sincerely yours, Nana.”

Well, if that wasn’t cryptic, Julia pulled the paper up from the typewriter and folded it up and put it in her pocket. Nana was always one for adventure and mystery, but where would she hide clues and what book could she possibly be talking about? Julia decided to start at the wall of journals, mostly because, knowing Nana, she would never deface one of her many books, but she would write in a journal! Many hours later after going through an entire bookshelf of journals, Julia was down to the last three books all black leather bound and the smallest of all the others, one was Papas, one was completely blank and the other was, it was the one, it was Nana’s. Julia held the book close to her heart and as she started to cry, a note then fell from the little black book.

“Well, you found it, the blank one Is for you. I hope you follow the clues and make your dream come true.”

That was it, that is all she wrote. Julia sat in the armchair in the corner of the room and turned on the reading lamp and started. The first few pages were from long ago, towards the middle was all about Julia, about her birth, how excited she was to finally have a grandchild, all the adventures they went on together, all the books they have shared and all her favorite memories of Julia and their time together. The very last page written on was from 3 days before nana passed.

“I can’t fight this anymore, but I will tackle one last task. The albums are all we have left of family who are no longer with us, start with those and enjoy the journey.”

The albums, Julia thought, the picture albums, but where did she keep them? Julia had to remember where those albums were, maybe in the attic or in Nana’s cedar chest in her room. Julia got up and started towards Nana’s bedroom to check the cedar chest, but when she got there the chest was gone, so she went to the attic to see if maybe it was moved there. Just as she reached the top of the steps and tried to turn on the lights to the attic, then she realized, the bulb was missing from the socket in the ceiling, luckily there was a flashlight near the switch on the wall. Julia turned the flashlight on and started looking around, and behind a rack of old clothing was Nana’s cedar chest. Julia went and opened the chest and found gold, well, not real gold, but about fifteen picture albums that she now had to go through. Why did Nana have to love adventure so much? After going through old photos of Papa and Nana, great aunts and uncles, and so many other people and family, she finally found a small album that had nothing but pictures of Nana and herself. Julia started to cry with every picture she looked at, memories flooding her mind, her favorite picture in the album was one that Nana was sitting in the old tire swing that hung from the willow tree in the backyard and Julia was pushing the swing for her. She took the picture from the album, figuring she would get it framed and hang it up in her dorm room at school. She flipped the picture around and on the back was Nana’s handwriting.

“The light will guide you, follow the picture like a map and it will all become clear.”

Julia took the picture and the flashlight back down the stairs and into the backyard. The willow tree was even bigger now and as beautiful as ever, and there the tire swing still hung. She walked over to the swing and went to sit and swing, but to her surprise there was a paper inside the tire, and she reached in, all that was written on the paper was “The color I wore that day would bring everything to light.” Julia scratched her head and tried to think what color Nana could have been talking about. She took the little black book, notes, picture and flashlight out of her pockets and tried to piece everything together. As she sat on the ground under the old willow tree, staring at all the clues, it came to her. Although the photo was black and white, she remembered Nana’s favorite summer dress was blue and that she was wearing that dress in her favorite picture of them. But how could blue make anything come to light? She kept thinking about it over and over in her mind until finally she looked at the flashlight and noticed that there were two buttons on it, she pressed the first and that was to turn the flashlight on, then pressed the second and the color changed from white to blue. So the flashlight is the key? She thought to herself, but what did it reveal, where should she take the light to find whatever it was that Nana had her looking for. Julia decided to give herself a break and go back to the library, thinking about the clues the entire time. She sat back down in the armchair and re-read Nana’s little black book. It was then that she opened the book to find another message.

“Read between the lines.”

And it was in that moment she shut off the reading lamp and placed the blue light from the flashlight on to the pages of the journal, scanning the pages while shining the blue light on them. About halfway through the journal she saw the message, well, it was a series of numbers, and on the very last page was the name of a bank and one last message.

“Spread your wings and live your dream. This is all you will need to get started. I love you, Julia. Love always, Nana.”

Julia did not hesitate. She left the house and drove to the bank to find out exactly what Nana had left her. After waiting in line for what felt like forever, she finally went up to the teller, gave her the account number and her name. “Ok ma’am would you like to make a withdrawal from your account?” Julia was stumped and asked the teller how much was in the account and to her surprise her Nana left her twenty thousand dollars to live her dream of being an author. Julia makes the decision then to take half of what she was left to save Nana’s house and take it off the market and buy it herself and to use the library as her workspace to finally live her dream and write novels. Julia’s whole life changed in that moment and it was all because Nana believed in her and Julia would make sure that she did not let Nana down.