Anticipating Joy

I found my mother’s diaries two weeks after she died. I found the hidden package twenty minutes later.

The discovery came after an emotional six months of caring for mom at home and seeing her through her final hours in hospital. She was frail and grey. As I held her hand, watching her slip away ripped a never-healing tear in my heart.

Marion Grace Turner died at 4:58 a.m. on a Tuesday morning. I don’t remember much about the days that followed other than hugs and kisses from family and friends who attended her funeral. Once their warmth and good wishes were gone I was left alone, crushed by relentless grief. I missed my mom. I wanted her back.

Instead of having my mom I had her house, her stuff, and her memories. I was shocked to find years of her remembrances written in an assortment of bound notebooks packed in a pinstriped bankers box that sat under her desk. Each book was a chapter in her life story that, I realize now, she meant for me to find and read.

As I dug through the box of books, looking for a beginning, a polaroid photograph of my mother’s sister Helen and her husband Robert fell from the pages of a spiral-bound notebook marked 1980. In the photo aunt Helen was pregnant. I saw the love in their laughter as uncle Robert’s right hand caressed Helen’s swollen belly. I guessed the photo was taken on the deck of their summer cottage. I grabbed the 1980 journal and flipped pages looking for an entry that might explain the photo.

What I found were pages dedicated to Helen’s pregnancy. It was her first. She was anxious to give birth, anticipating the event with great preparation. White nursery furniture was assembled and waiting in an ample room painted a gender-neutral yellow. Names had been considered and chosen. A boy would be named Robert Henry Junior. A girl would be named Joy Elizabeth, with emphasis on the joy. Helen really wanted a daughter.

According to her diary, mom knit a yellow baby cardigan that was wrapped and ready to send. The baby was due in September. That was the last mom wrote until her next journal entry dated October 16, 1980.

I had my hands on a page-turner and kept reading to find out what happened next. Seems the parcel containing the baby sweater was never sent. Baby Joy died two days after she was born.

I can only imagine the shock and grief that ensued. Mom’s final entry in her 1980 diary wasn’t an explanation but a promise the sweater would stay in her closet until a better time.

Uncertain of the sweater’s actual presence, I ran upstairs to mom’s bedroom closet. There behind a vintage hat box on the top shelf was a parcel the size of a shirt box wrapped in brown paper. On one corner was penciled “mail before Labor Day” in mom’s handwriting.

Just as I was debating whether to open the box my cell phone rang. It was my cousin Donna. Donna was Aunt Helen’s second born, arriving two years after Robert Junior. I let the call go to voice mail. I needed a moment to process its spooky timing. Despite living thousands of miles apart, Donna and I were close and communicated with each other every week. Her message was short. “Call me,” she said.

I hit the dial button thinking I’d let Donna lead the conversation. I’d keep quiet. How could I say anything about my discovery when I didn’t know what Donna knew. Did she know about her sister?

The phone rang three times before Donna picked up. She sounded excited. I had little time to think before she hit me with my third shock of the day. “I’m pregnant,” she declared.

I don’t remember what I said. I don’t even remember ending the call. I just remember crying as I tore open the brown paper box. Inside there was another layer of colorful paper emblazed with new baby congratulations. I tore through it too. And the box. Inside was a soft, yellow, knitted cardigan. The tiny buttons were shaped like teddy bears.

I placed the baby sweater back in its box and made a mental note to go shopping for wrapping paper. I searched for and found a blank greeting card in my mother's desk. On the front was a bright pink peony. It was my mom’s favorite flower. Donna’s too. I wrote in the card “for your little bundle of joy” and signed it, “Love, Aunt Marion.” I knew then my mom would live on. She’d live through me as I shared what she had created in her life. Now was the perfect time for this parcel to have a new destination.