The Crumple-Rumpled Thing

That blasted thing.

There never seemed to be an end to the search for it.

I sighed.

She had lost it nearly four decades ago, yet still I hunted for it like a golden eagle seeking indefensible prey.

I remembered it well. She wore it infrequently. The most common place for it was on the dresser, atop the mirrored vanity tray brought from who knows where. I was too young to know that particular thing’s origin story. For that matter, I was too young to have such a singular focus on something that was surely gone forever…

I sank deeper into the overly stuffed leather recliner, his favorite seat in the entire mausoleum of a home. Everywhere my eyes landed, a memory began.

My eye glazed over many things and staved off yet another fall into the yawning chasm of regret that always beckoned. The half-recalled vicious rants hurled at the one who shall remain nameless. Too painful to acknowledge the fault; much easier to look for something that probably may never be found.

I flicked off the screen removing the umpteenth letter stating the obvious – it was not found.

Why was I still paying to search for a rumpled-up bit of metal and gem hidden within the quickest picker up? Was I mad? Becoming untethered to reality by a whisper of hope?

I began the usual roll-rocking back and forth as I gnawed my bottom lip. I closed my eye and watched again that teeny moment in time where she was in the bathroom and going through her pocketbook, the big black one made from some odd, pebbled leather-like material. She had dumped all the contents onto the well-trodden mat where only the outer edges still had the soft high pile. All other areas were flattened by the family’s passing through the two doors. One from Jerry’s room, and the other from our room. We three only used this bathroom. He went downstairs all the time. He took his time and hitched his way down each and every time he needed to go. Then, slide-walked his way back up. Never understood why. Never thought to ask. It was now much too late for questions of that sort.

She pawed through old church programs, crinkly clear candy wrappers, bobby pins, safety pins, a brand new hairnet still in its paper envelope packaging, a huge ring of regular and ancient skeleton keys on a brown leather strap, a wide-toothed off-white comb, and a small red brush with jet-black plastic bristles (which stung like the dickens when one was struck with them if one happened to be too giggly during Sunday services), a small glass bottle of water )to help her take her pills if she forgot to take them in the morning), so many sticks of Wrigley’s gum without the paper wrapping, just the sticks, only, in their foil wrap and so many other countless unfathomable things like a gold doorknob. And, of course, lots of tissue paper, toilet paper, and paper towels torn into shreds and crumple-rumpled up.

I remember passing the open bathroom door and watching her paw through all of the things, unraveling the various papers and tissues only to find nothing at all within. Her extreme agitation stirred something within me now, as an adult, looking back in time. Yet, at that time, my preteen self walked blithely past only asking, “Is there any more ham in the fridge?”

“Don’t you touch another piece, Young Lady. You ate almost the whole pound last night!”

I suppressed a giggle. Her tone was all grandmother softie-firm (so unlike the other one). There was more to be had if I moved quickly.

The Other One. The one that back then, and the one right now, I didn’t want to dwell upon. The Other One meant so much and so little simultaneously. The Other One was the whole schmear and a squib of nothingness. If Grandma was Cyndi Lauper, then the Other One was Cyndi’s brother Butch – hidden. Or was it simply the Other One’s motivations were obscure?? Till this day, it hurt to ponder the thought.

Searching for a crumple-rumpled bauble that was flushed almost half a century ago was more feasible, more attainable than questing for the love from the Other One.

The search for the lost thing was all I had left of her beautiful soul.

All her pictures – locked away in yesteryear Danish cookie tins in holiday colors.

All her clothes – boxed up immediately after her passing and given to God knows who.

Her all-time favorite (hideous) patchwork purple suede platform shoes thrown out before her last breath came.

Her boxes and boxes of hats and suits whisked away, along with any invasive dust particles that dared to settle on anything at all, all her things were moved in brisk efficiency to places other than where they were supposed to be, erasing a life that had not yet been snuffed…

If erasure was the goal, why not go all the way and stop time in its tracks by the full denial of all things her?? Ah, but that was done by not mentioning her name, having no pictures about, no stories shared when others of us gathered. The deafening din of silence was always there, was always the wide busy highway between us two.

So, when the Other One became overly tipsy that one-time, last Fall, and burped a bit of the past out, pictures of her from those tins surfaced, too. And there, there is when I saw her sweet face holding onto the shoulder of some unknown relative, and there upon her finger was the ring.

The memory rushed back of Grandma in the bathroom on her knees pawing through her things.

And now me, here I am. Pawing through my paltry memories hoping to grasp a piece of the one who loved me much.

Yet, I fear deep in my heart… the crumple-rumpled thing may never be found.

Should it not, what would that mean for me? For the Other One? Does it mean that disparate things never find congruence?

Or does it mean that that lost things are sometimes never meant to be found because new things ought to be sought…