The Letter

“Well it won't clean itself Helen.” She could hear Rodney’s voice chiding her. 

She knew he was right, the attic was never going to clean itself, that the more she put it off the worse it was going to be, but with each passing year she could find a million things better to do than wade her way through the memories and heartbreak held in those dust covered boxes perpetually perched above her head. There were always children to raise, or there was work to do, events to go to. Now though, the children were raising their own children, she had retired from teaching a couple years ago and Rodney had been gone for just over 6 months. Even the weather seemed to be telling her it was time. The rain poured down relentlessly outside the kitchen window so she couldn't even take a walk to get away from it. 

“Well, now is as good a time as any,” Helen huffed towards no one in particular. She gathered her cleaning supplies and all the strength she could muster and headed for the attic stairs. She opened the door slowly as it protested with loud moans and groans from years of not being used and she climbed through the cobwebs. She instantly regretted not bringing a flashlight with her but her eyes slowly grew accustomed to the dim glow from the cloud-filled skies outside the tiny windows. She was now able to see the dangling string that would illuminate the room and she gave it a quick tug. Light poured down from the single light bulb in its fixture in the ceiling and she quickly remembered why she had avoided coming up here for so many years.

There were the usual things that you would find in an attic: boxes of Christmas decorations and her daughter’s old prom dresses, her son’s tiny handprints forever saved in clay and boxes full of scribbled drawings and cards for every occasion. And while each one of those things held a special place in her heart, she could sort through them, maybe with a few tears but also a lot of smiles. There were so many good memories of a life well-lived but she realized she couldn’t keep it all. She had already asked her children what they wanted her to do with anything that was technically theirs and they had assured her that she was free to get rid of anything in the attic. So she did. 

Once she got started, Helen quickly made piles to be donated and recycled and filled bags with trash. It was kind of exhilarating for her to see how quickly the space seemed to shape up. Stacks of boxes and bags were obliterated and she could get deeper and deeper into the attic. She was working so hard that she forgot about the gloomy day outside until she was shocked by a terrible strike of lightning and the loudest thunder she had ever heard. She jumped and gasped as the roof, just a few feet above her, seemed to shake. The rain poured down even harder and she felt like the ceiling would certainly give way, soaking her and any belongings still left in the attic. 

Before she could breathe normally again, she looked up and saw that she had made it to the very back of the attic where she hadn't been for years and she gasped again as she read the box’s label that was now within her reach. “Mom’s Stuff,” it said and she traced the words with her finger. Not her stuff, her mom’s stuff, and right then the room began to spin. She had to sit down to keep from passing out. She was instantly a 21-year old girl, finishing her last shift at the grocery store over Christmas break, just waiting to go back to college and start her final semester when she saw her dad come in the store. He was saying words to her but her brain had such a hard time keeping up and understanding what he was saying. “Your mom’s had a seizure.” There were just 5 words, but they didn't go together right. She couldn’t comprehend what he was talking about, but she could still see the frantic look in his eyes more than 50 years later. 

This is what she had been avoiding. This is the part of her past that she tried so hard to forget, that had so indelibly marked every one of her decisions since but she had never quite come to grips with. Her mother was barely 41 when the cancerous brain tumor was diagnosed after all, in the prime of her life and merely four years older when she was gone. It seemed incomprehensible to Helen that she was almost 30 years older than her mother ever was. There was something so unnatural about it. 

Everything in her screamed that she should run away, avoid those boxes at all costs! She could just leave them there for the next owners to find after she was long gone so she wouldn't have to rip open such old wounds and dig through the past. It had been decades since she had even opened them. But then it thundered again, a low rumbling sound that seemed to be urging her to keep going. She tentatively cut through the tape and opened the old warped box and as the rain poured down outside, the tears poured down her face. She pulled out a picture in a frame, slightly faded from time, but still visible. Her mom sat in her wheelchair and held her left hand close so it wouldn’t drag and she smiled the biggest, cheesiest grin. Helen remembered the day like it was yesterday. Her aunt had arranged for the girls to be able to go to the lake for a few hours. It was sunny and spring-like and you could tell her mom enjoyed the sense of normalcy for just a brief moment. They all knew that soon outings like that would be impossible. It was getting harder and harder for her mom to get around as she lost more of the use of her left side and relied on others to move her. So they made the most of that day and took a lot of pictures.

There were other pictures from that trip under the framed picture and Helen flipped through them smiling at the memory of her aunts and grandmother making the day special for her mom. And then she stopped because she had to catch her breath once more. The last picture in the stack showed a young Helen grinning and stooping beside her mom in the wheelchair while she kissed her on the cheek. It had been so long since she had known what it was like to feel her mother's love. She instinctively touched her cheek where her mother's lips had once been and closed her eyes. What she wouldn’t give to feel that again. 

As she pulled more things out of the box, Helen found other pictures. There was the one from her college graduation where her mom had to wear a wig because she had lost all her hair from the experimental chemotherapy they did and the one two years later from her sister's graduation where she was in a wheelchair. Helen found a picture of the birthday cake they celebrated her mom's 45th birthday with in the hospital bed that was permanently in their living room for two years and pictures of the last Christmas which her mom slept through because the tumor had taken over. 

She pulled out trinkets and cards and notes written in her mom's loopy cursive handwriting, some from when she was young and some from the time that she was sick. And as she gingerly held each item, Helen cried but she soon realized that she wasn't sad. All of these memories had reminded her of the good times she had with her mom and the way her mom loved her so well.

The last piece of paper at the very bottom of the boxes was typed with one little scribble. Helen clutched it to her chest when she realized what it was and she couldn’t contain her emotions any longer. She began to wail loudly recalling how she received the letter. The Christmas after her mom died had been so difficult but her family was putting on brave faces and making it through. When they thought all the gifts had been opened, her aunt pulled three boxes from seemingly nowhere and handed them to Helen and her siblings. They opened them at the same time and Helen instantly started to cry when she recognized her mom's scribbled handwriting. Her aunt had kept it a secret because Helen’s mom had asked her to. In her last few months, she wasn’t able to write so she had Helen’s aunt type up a letter for each of her children and then she signed them. When Helen was all cried out, she looked at the paper again and read the note out loud.

To my precious children, 

You have all been my angels on earth through the hardest time in my life. Thank you! I love you all so much.

Love, 

Mom

And in that dim, dusty attic on that rainy afternoon, Helen had an epiphany. Yes, she had lost her mother when she was far too young, but she had never lost her mother’s love. Reminders of that love were held in each of these boxes, in the smiling faces in the pictures and the loving words written on the notecards. By trying to forget the pain, Helen had deprived herself of being able to remember the good. She had also allowed herself to forget the blessing her mother was in her life, but she vowed that that wouldn’t be the case any longer. 

Helen picked herself up, dusted herself off and walked straight to the kitchen with the letter in her hand. She made some room in between the pictures of her children and grandchildren and picked up one of the magnets she and Rodney had gotten when they traveled. She slid the letter from her mom underneath, directly in the middle of the refrigerator where everyone could see it and then she reached in her pocket for her phone. She dialed her daughter’s number and after exchanging the usual greetings, Helen said, “Have I ever told you about your Grandma Julia’s famous whoopie pies?” And just then Helen could see the sunshine come through the clouds.