They were too little to comprehend her death.
At the service, I held them both and tried not to cry. I told them mom was above us looking over us. She liked them more than cookies and cartoons. All they did was nod with wide eyes and little hands. They were toddlers. However, at five, kids can carry flowers, ask insightful questions, and recall more than I imagined.
Visit her on her birthday every year. We do it regularly. As promised, we bring her favorite yellow flowers and snap a photo at her tombstone. “To show her we visited,” I usually say.
This time, Ellie wore her gray twirly outfit because “Nana liked twirly ones.” Drew’s button-up shirt was half-unbutton near the cemetery gate.
They embraced often before her stone. Photo taken by myself. A simple visit with flowers, a snapshot, and tranquility was planned.
Drew pointed to the headstone base and stated, “That box wasn’t there last year.”
Down I glanced.
He was correct.
Hidden behind the flowers was a little wooden box. It looked pristine, like someone put it there that morning. No writing. No name. A silent mystery.
I hesitated. Then opened.
A yellowed letter and black-and-white photos were inside.
Ellie pulled my sleeve. “From Nana?”
“I don’t know, baby,” I murmured, my pulse beating.
There was no recipient for the letter. Short, beautiful cursive note:
“To her closest loved one, I couldn’t say it then.
But I hope they clarify.
– C.”
I half-expected to see someone observing us from a tree or cemetery. There was nothing. Just birds and wind.
I clutched something heavy, but the youngsters were chasing butterflies nearby.
Flipped through images.
My mom was young, gorgeous, smiling, and always with the same guy. He stared at her in the images with loving eyes and wide shoulders, making me gasp. Love was there. Genuine love.
Next, I saw the shot that tilted everything.
They faced the old 5th Street bakery. My mom was clearly pregnant. I was still developing within her.
The guy beside her?
Not my father.
I flipped the picture. In faint pencil:
“Fall ‘91—J & C & Baby.”
Ellie leant. Who’s that?
“I don’t know,” I said. My gut told me I did.
After the kids went to bed, I spread the package contents on the kitchen table. My hands shook. I contacted Aunt Sylvia, Mom’s elder sister. Family historian. She always knew things but seldom shared them until asked.
Know someone called C? I requested. “Someone close to Mom?”
The silence was lengthy. Then sigh.
“I was wondering when that box would show up,” she whispered.
Chest constricted. “You knew?”
She induced a promise. If she was gone for almost five years and you still visited, I could leave.
I leaned in. “Who’s the man in the photos?”
“His name was Jonah,” Sylvia whispered. Your mom’s first love. Prior to dad.”
But I thought—
“She adored your dad in her own. However, Jonah was unique. Special.”
“Why didn’t she accept him?”
“She wanted. But he departed. Left without saying goodbye. One day disappeared.”
I frowned. “And then?”
Two years later, he sent her the letter and images. Said he loved her forever but was unwell. Unwanted her to watch him disappear. He urged her not to look.”
Was quiet.
“She kept that box for years?” I requested.
“Every year on her birthday,” Sylvia added. “She read the letter. Put it aside again.”
I hung up and examined the package, photographs, and note. My mother. Much more than I knew.
The following morning, I walked the kids.
Old 5th Street bakery is now a laundry with barred windows.
“Why are we here?” Ellie asks.
I squatted near her.
“Because this is where your Nana stood when she was so happy.”
Both nodded as if it made sense.
I couldn’t sleep that night. Jonah kept coming to mind. My mother. About quietly carrying that love your entire life.
A week later, I visited the cemetery alone.
I carefully returned the photographs and note to the wooden box, adding a beach shot of myself and the kids from last summer. Writing on the back:
She lovingly reared us.
I appreciate your involvement in her story.”
Left it.
It was unexpected what occurred next.
A letter arrived three weeks later. Absent return address.
A little message was inside:
I’m Jonah’s niece.
His death was in 1995.
He asked me to locate any photos left at her tomb.
He desired this for you.”
A little key was included. Vermont address.
My heart hammered.
I contacted my ex to babysit the kids. I packed my stuff and traveled north.
The roads narrowed and the woods thickened until I reached it—a white cottage beside the lake.
A guy my age answered the door.
I’m Grant, he said. “My uncle Jonah.”
The door opened and he let me in.
“He left everything to me when I turned 18,” Grant recalled. “Except this room. He said not to open it until a beach picture was supplied.
Unlocked the door.
Every wall was covered with her in the little, intimate room.
Photos of my mom. Sketches. Press clipping. Poetry. A tape called Her Laugh.
I stood silently, overwhelmed.
“He was kind of obsessed,” Grant replied softly. “But beautifully. Not creepy. Just profound love.”
I held a drawing of my mother, younger than ever, smiling with her eyes closed.
How come he never reached out again? I requested.
Grant shrugged. “He wrote unsent letters. I discovered them after he died. He declined to intervene. Not wanting to harm her new life.”
Have you kept them?
He nodded and gave me a package.
It was in my trunk as I drove home.
I read every letter at the kitchen table after the kids went to bed.
Some made me chuckle.
Some made me weep.
The last one, penned days before Jonah died, stated:
I hope her daughter finds me.
She should know her mother was a once-in-a-lifetime.”
With the letter to my chest, I closed my eyes.
Now everything felt different.
For years, I believed I understood everything about my mother. About love. On sacrifice.
I realized—love doesn’t have to be loud or flawless. Sometimes quiet. Hidden. Unspoken. But potent.
I informed the youngsters about Jonah. Adequate for their age.
“Sometimes people love each other even if they can’t stay,” I said.
Drew said, “Like in the movies?”
“Exactly,” I answered. “Except this one’s real.”
Next time we visited Nana, each child brought two flowers.
“One for Nana,” Ellie said. “And one for her lover.”
I stood with my children, my mother’s memories, and the tale I never realized I needed.
Strange how one box may affect your life.
Stranger still, how true love can last decades.
I now hang a Jonah drawing in our living room. Just above the kids’ art.
Because honoring the past often means letting it stand proudly alongside the present.
Life conceals realities until you’re ready.
They don’t modify your tale when they arrive.
Deepen it.
Perhaps that’s what true love is.
