It's The Thought That Counts

Sarah picked at the remains of her cold oatmeal and slugged her lukewarm coffee, half-asleep, half-dazed at the sudden turn of events and still puzzled over the handwritten note from her late grandmother.

“Tell me again exactly where you found it?” Her father asked. 

“It was underneath the attic boards, back in the left corner.”

“The attic above the third floor staircase?”

“Yes, in the very back, underneath the window that looks toward Culebra Peak.”

Culebra Peak, majestically seated halfway between Denver, Colorado, and Albuquerque, New Mexico, was the very landmark that catalyzed this complicated situation over a decade ago. A 14,000 ft mountain, largely ignored to everyone other than Culebra’s inhabitants, until the discovery of coal, petroleum and gold from a nosy geologist-turned developer during a hike through the spruce and aspen blanketed hills, had become a battleground between conservationists and capitalists. What was once a playground for elk in the early morning as the sunrise painted the rays across the acres of land was now becoming a barren pasture with graded soil prepped for housing and commercial development. For generations, Sarah’s family laid claim to the land and since her great grandparents founded the surrounding village, and subsequently her grandparents, aunts and uncles headed up a segment of every respectable and foundational industry in town, from pharmacy to veterinarian to school teacher, mayor and police, the townspeople did not argue. Her family was fair, equitable and above all, focused on minimally impacting the land. Until the developers came in. With deeper pockets and closer ties to the Denver politicians to the north and Albuquerque politicians to the south, politics and power won, and they started encroaching on the natural beauty faster than the trout swam migrated upstream in the spring. Sarah’s grandfather claimed ownership of the more than 80,000 acres, but died before he could produce the documents. 

That was ten years ago and the family fought until they were the last remaining house on the property, stalling any development until they were evicted.

Two weeks ago, Sarah got the call. “It’s time, Sarah. We need you to come say goodbye to your grandmother.” Sarah knew that this would be the end, not only of her grandmother’s life but of their life in the Culebra Mountain Range. Sarah grabbed the first flight out from San Diego and showed up on her grandmother’s doorstep, the last remaining house at the base of Culebra Peak in the heart of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains of the Rocky Mountain Range, the hills where Sarah spent carefree days wandering through streams and over branches, climbed to the tops of the trees and tunneled through crevices until the moon lit her path home for dinner. 

Sarah’s father greeted her with a brisk hug, “She’s not the same, Sarah, and it’s not just Alzheimer's this time. This eviction was the final straw and I can’t get her to snap out of it. I think she’s only got a few more days here with us. I just want you to be prepared.”

Sarah sat at her grandmother’s bedside, and held her hand. “They can't,” her grandmother whispered. 

“Shhhh, Gran. It’s going to be okay. Just rest.”

Her grandmother insisted, trying to sit up on her elbows. “They, they can’t. You can’t let them. The house. The mountain.”

“Gran, it’s okay. We lived a good life there. It’s time to let it go.”

“It’s the” her grandmother struggled to get the words out, “thought”. 

“Yes, it is the thought, Gran. It’s our memories, Gran, that is what we will hold on to.” Sarah patted her hand. Her grandmother pulled her hand away sharply, surprising Sarah with her sudden strength.

“It’s the thought,” she paused, “that counts.”

“The thought that counts?” Sarah shook her head, not understanding, as her grandmother breathed her last breath.

A week later, Sarah and her father were sitting at the kitchen table, befuddling over the small slip of paper that Sarah found. Her father refilled her coffee and she appreciated the temporary comfort of watching the steam rise from the ceramic mug with the cracked handle, the one she always drank from when she came to her grandmother’s house. “Show me the piece of paper again and tell me exactly what happened that morning she died.”

“I was at her bedside and she just kept mumbling nonsense. I tried to get her to calm down but she wanted to talk about memories, thoughts. It was like a part of her was still inside, awake, not ready to go.”

“She was inside, she just couldn’t get it out,” her father said softly. 

“I know, but it was still hard to see. She said, ‘It’s the thought that counts.’ She didn’t stop repeating that.”

“And then?”

“And then she died.” Sarah was weary of repeating the story. 

“Did she say anything else?” her dad asked.

“No, but I didn’t think anything else of what she said until I found the piece of paper up in the attic yesterday.” She handed him the piece of paper, which held the same words her grandmother had been repeating the day she died, ‘It’s the thought that counts.’ Sarah shook her head. “There has to be some connection, don’t you think?” Sarah frowned and tried to connect the dots, wishing she could ask her grandmother.

Her father studied the paper. “And this was near the window?”

“Yes, I was upstairs yesterday to clean out the attic and sat down in my favorite spot, the one that looks at Culebra Peak Mountain. She and I used to sit there when I was a girl. As I walked over one of the boards, it creaked up and I saw the piece of paper floating in the corner. It’s definitely her handwriting.”

“It looks like the paper has been drug through the mud.”

“Yes, but the attic was pristine. And I didn’t find anything near it.” Sarah shook her head. “Who knows if it even has anything to do with what she was trying to tell us?” Sarah squinted at the paper, “It is odd the way she wrote it, though. Look at the letters, some with serif and others without. She’s usually more precise than that.”

“Interesting. It’s like there’s a pattern to it.”

“Maybe it’s a clue?” Sarah laughed, eager to find some levity in the situation.

“Sarah, there is no mystery to solve here. I wouldn’t read into it.”

“Well, wait a minute, Dad, think about it. Why else would she get so flustered all of the sudden? She knew her time was coming, she could feel it. It was like she had something else to tell us but couldn’t get it out. Maybe this note leads us to what she’s trying to say.” her eyes pleaded with him, “Humor me on this, what else have we got to lose? We’re about to lose the battle we’ve fought the last ten years, the house, the land, all because we don’t have the paperwork showing we own it, as grandad claimed, if we actually do.”

Her father sighed, resigned to let Sarah carry her suppositions out. “Go on.”

“Okay,” Sarah leaned in closer to her father and pointed at the paper. “Look closely. In the first word, T and e have a serif. In the second, only the T, o, u, g, and h, have one.”

“If you put those together the words become Te Tough”, said her dad, with a furrowed brow. He laughed. “This is nonsense Sarah.”

“Wait, there is one more letter, the s has a serif.”

“Te Tough S.” her dad shook his head.

Sarah studied the paper again. “Toughest! If you rearrange the letters it spells toughest,” She looked up at her dad, “Does that mean anything to you?”

“Nothing other than a memory. She always told me not to hang my hopes on football, that the body was weak and the mind was the toughest muscle we’ve got, like the roots of a tree, the brains of a tree, the more you water, the deeper they go and tougher they get.”

“Ironic that she believed so strongly in the mind, seeing as how it was the Alzheimers that killed her” Sarah said. 

“She always pointed me back to the metaphor of a tree and its roots.”

“Same for me, said it’s why she loved the land so much. There was so much in nature to remind us of our own strength. I wouldn’t have gotten into Medical school any other way.”

“Your great-grandparents planted the Evergreens at the base of Culebra Peak, did she ever tell you that?” 

“If she told me once, she told me a thousand times!” Sarah laughed. “That’s why we loved looking out the window from the attic, straight at the aspen grove. She was so proud of that. Said it was the best grove in this whole region. That we needed to preserve it, never let it get torn down. It’s a wonder the developers have saved it until now.”

“They did it out of respect for her. They’re set to demolish the base of the mountain tomorrow. That was the news they gave her before I called you. The eviction she could handle, the grove being demolished, she crumbled.”

A breeze wafted into the window, bringing with it the crisp morning air and the sharp, sweet scent of the evergreens. Sarah closed her eyes and breathed deep, remembering picnics with her grandparents under a particular tree, the one in the middle of the grove. She looked back at the piece of paper, the dirt, the wrinkles. 

The dirt. The trees. The grove. 

Sarah leapt up. “Dad, what if Gran was trying to tell us something about the property? Something we could do to save it?”

“Sarah,” her dad began but she held up her hand. 

“You don’t have to believe me dad, but the least I can do is go and see. What have we got to lose? She grabbed her boots and lunged for the door. 

“Okay Sarah, but wait for me!” said her dad. 

“Bring a shovel!” Sarah was out the door, running to the base of the mountain.

They burst into the grove of trees, breathless. 

“Where do we begin?” her dad surveyed the trees as Sarah looked at the jarring mustard yellow excavators, metal monsters with the word CAT emblazoned across the side. 

She went to the picnic tree. “Here” she said, falling to her knees and digging her hands into the soft mud, her mind exploding with memories of the times she would draw in the dirt as a child. 

Her father stabbed the shovel into the dirt. They dug until the heat of the Colorado sun shone heavy on their backs. The excavators would be there soon. They raced against time, not knowing what they were looking for and feeling more foolish by the minute. After three hours and a hole deep enough to fit the both of them in there, her dad suggested that they stopped.

Sarah felt foolish, and distraught, wishing that she could lay in the grave herself. She stepped into the hole, surrounding herself with the cool earth. What were they doing? It was a futile effort. “At least we tried.” 

She began to climb out, using the soft dirt as a set of stairs. The dirt crumbled underneath her foot, and she fell back into the hole, scraping her knee on a sharp piece of metal that jutted out from the cavernous slope. 

“Dad, hand me the shovel.” She began to chip away at the dirt around the metal and screamed when she saw a small metal box. “Help me get this out!”

They unearthed the box from the side of the slope and sat inside the hole her father dug, looking at each other and scared to look inside.

“Do you think this is it?”

Her dad laughed. “Sarah, we don’t even know what the ‘it’ is that we are looking for. Let’s not get our hopes up.”

She nodded, humoring her father but knowing that they had found the treasure they were seeking. “Wise words, dad.”

She opened the box slowly, hoping for the best, and inside she saw the words, “Land Deed and Territory Claim”. A quick scan of the yellow, tattered document showed that her grandfather’s claims were true. The land, all 80,000 acres of it, was theirs after all.

She turned the box towards her father, who smiled. 

“Who would have guessed?” Sarah exclaimed, bewildered, “It’s certainly the thought that counts after all!”