Top-drawer chore

 


It can be intimidating to rifle through a drawer of memories: Letters, cards, pictures, newspaper clippings. Life's paper trail.

As the occasional COVID chore you finally have the time and inclination to tackle, the bedroom nightstand can be a treasure trove. But it's an emotional commitment, too, with drawers stuffed full of memories of days that raced away, taking people you loved with them. It isn't all depressing: There are the Valentines from your spouse, the essays your sons wrote in school, the smart-aleck birthday cards from friends.

I also found a letter from my dad telling me he was glad to have brought me into the world; birthday cards for my kids from my late sister and brother, Christmas greetings from grandparents now long gone.  

But the most frequent source on the paper trail? Yep, mom. That shouldn't come as a surprise to regular readers of this blog. I don't mean to brag, but one of her loving missives began with: "To my intelligent, sophisticated, lovely daughter." The envelopes themselves are also written with flourish, including one she hand-delivered that reads: "To my daughter: born Jan. 31, 1960 at 12:42 a.m., 7 lbs., 8 oz. Inside, she told me how she had been born "with a silver spoon in my mouth, and you were born with a gold one in yours."

Not all of her communications are in letter form. She once sent an advertisement for a seven-night cruise to Bermuda, adding the words: "Let's do it. I also would like New Orleans." I found a list of movies she wanted to see when she visited: "The White Cliffs of Dover," a "movie I watched with  Clark Gable and Lana Turner, but I don't remember the title" and "Stella Dallas," all, as my teenage niece would say, "black and white movies with dead people in them." To my son she once wrote: "Please wear your helmet when you do your bike tricks."

I now have trouble throwing away the grocery lists she sometimes leaves in my car: Sweet 'N Low, V.O. hair (gel), Tic Tax (sic) and Werther's candies, which sort of defeats the purpose of the artificial sweetener. (""I can't help it; I need something for my sweet tooth.")

Like the old-fashioned photos we used to pick up at Fotomat, letter writing and mailing cards may be a thing of the past. It's easier to text each other. Hell, Facebook will even tell you about birthdays you might forget.

Still, a piece of paper with your mother's sprightly handwriting is something you just can't just throw away. Especially if it begins with, "My darling daughter" and ends with  "Love Mother," a title that may sound fussy and self-important. But in mom's version, it is, as she might say in a twist on the aphorism, "as plain as the nose on your face." 

And worth its weight in a gold spoon.


      

     


   

     

 

  


       

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