Unspoken

I am the last to dig through the half-filled boxes stacked along the wall of the crowded room. The familiar varnished bedroom set has yellowed and the wooden drawers groan after opening and closing thousands of times. Wake. Dress. Undress. Rest. Repeat. The hours between wake and rest were filled with responsibilities, joy, tears, love, fear, regret. This repetition defined her last sixty-six years of marriage and mothering and defined who she was to each of us; but each of our definitions were very different.

The room exudes an eerie quiet despite the lingering energy of the frail woman. The scent of old perfume mingles with stale air and disinfectant. Their wedding photo is still perched on the dresser. No other sibling had dared to take it for themselves and risk ridicule or tried to pack it away, damage it and be ruthlessly judged.

The tiny first floor space was not their bedroom. She stayed in their marital bed alone for 16 years after my father passed. The move to the first floor was finally decided by frugality and need. The expense of heating an empty second floor and the daunting reality of climbing stairs forced the guest room to become part of my mother’s shrinking space, in her shrinking world, inside her shrinking frame.

I search through each box to keep my hands busy but my mind races with a jumble of emotions as memories are triggered with each familiar belonging. The cheap costume jewelry and knick-knacks were once seen through my younger eyes as her greatest treasures.

An unease surfaces as the familiar turns unfamiliar. I find items that seem to belong to a stranger. I realize that we rarely ever see all of someone, epecially once we define their role to us.

At the bottom of one box lay a forgotten small black notebook rubber banded to a stack of papers and receipts, clearly overlooked by the 5 gold digging siblings. I knew anything of value would have been taken before my arrival. I needed to find something more than monetary value or trinkets to claim like the others. I searched for meaning in each slip of aged paper. I searched for meaning to fill in what I felt I lacked. I needed more time with each of them, especially my father. Losing him when I was just 29 was devastating. My adult life had barely begun and I had wasted so much of my youth rejecting his advice and clashing with his personality. We clashed because we were exactly the same; something my mother later told me she loved and lamented. He never saw the house I built with the skills and confidence I learned from him. He never met my son, who would have stolen his heart despite being the last of a long line of grandchildren. I am filled with jealousy toward my older siblings for the years they had with him. I am filled with emptiness and longing. I can’t imagine how my mother survived losing him. Now I'd lost her, too. As fragile as my family was, it was now broken beyond repair-and it was mostly her fault.

In the stack was a receipt for a man’s Timex purchased in 1982; another, a letter from her old friend Mickey (Marilyn) in Florida wanting them to come for a visit. The letter was a request that never manifested as my father’s passing was 3 months and 5 days after it was written. The watch was faithfully wound by my father every morning before placing it on his left wrist. Every night, he placed it at his work sink atop the wooden shelf with the heart-shaped mirror I made him in 8th grade shop class. If the watch still existed, it had been taken by one of my siblings along with anything else of value. Like common thieves, selfish in their actions with no regard to the promise they made to our mother, her belongings were raided, her home pillaged.

I felt hollow sitting among the remaining items from my mother’s life. My childhood’s Catholic indoctrination was purged a few years after I left home and my faith has since been non-existent. At this moment, however, I hoped the Universe was taking notes.

A quick flip through the pages of the mostly empty notebook revealed little, but then I happened upon something that was missed by all the rest.

Tucked neatly between the pages was a white envelope. Sealed. No date. No inscription. Inside was a handwritten letter from my mother. It must have been recently penned as her usual elegant cursive was degraded by sickness at the end of her days. In this letter she prayed her children would follow her wishes of dividing her belongings equally and, upon the sale of her home, to split the profits evenly. Despite my father’s lifetime of blue collar work and frugal living, my parents didn’t have a lot of assets. They wanted to provide for us all but knew it wouldn't amount to much. I remember the day she gathered us, her strength defied her frailty and her words were her final plea for peace and cooperation. I felt her sadness, the pain of my siblings at odds with one another and my own anger at our impending loss.

Her pleas fell on deaf ears. The thorny relationships between siblings were strained by her imminent death and the fiery greed of those who lacked nothing but still wanted more turned her wishes to ash. She had been the bond that held us together and that bond was soon broken.

As her final letter continued, the tone turned darker. Punishing. Fateful. In life, my mother loved her children but could not show love to more than one of us at a time. With room for just one white sheep, it left 5 black sheep in the pasture waiting for their turn. Even though I lived close by and helped her often, I was, in reality, closer to a grey sheep. Never in-never out. Always on the edges.

Her letter uncloaked her feelings about each one of us, not as her children, but as adults. She expressed feelings parents don’t reveal to another living soul, but instead, burying in a little black notebook. Only by chance would it be found and long after the dead have found their courage.

With each raw emotion scrawled in a shaky hand about my siblings, I came to what she thought of me. Though the ink was tear-stained, the message was clear. She was not sure where I came from or who I was but was certain that I was someone she hadn’t liked. We were as different as they come. I was too independent and too confident for my status in life. I lived life flippantly with no regard for a higher order or purpose. I did not follow a prescribed path; jumping from one job to another and never seeming to find my way.

In the end, however, she admitted I had figured out something she hadn’t until it was too late. There was no one path and no one makes your path but you. One must decide what makes them happy, not what others think or value. She admittedly had misunderstood me and for that was deeply sorry.

Through my own blurry eyes I read her confession of guilt and remorse. She poured out more than I wanted to know. Her apology was met with bitter anger at her cowardice for not telling me when she had the chance. My chest heaved and ached as I felt every word and lost opportunity. In the silence, my body stilled. I thought I had felt the last of the emotional earthquake. Then the aftershock rumbled.

Attached to the last page of her letter was a cashier’s check for twenty thousand dollars. Who it was intended for and why it was hidden here was baffling. Her finances had been settled, the accounts closed and insurance filed. Why would this lump sum be separate from the rest? My instilled familial mistrust smoldered then ignited. Was she relying on fate to choose the whitest sheep of the flock? My Ego screamed it was a payoff for a guilty conscience. My inner child whispered that it was one last game to see who would find it.

On the back of the check written on a Post-It note were 6 one syllable words:

“All’s fair in love and war.”