Peeking

I peeked once
a year ago
into Linda's Red Bag.
I quickly closed it.

Inside the red bag
is a black briefcase.

Inside the black briefcase
are papers and I know not what.

"My whole life is in that bag."


My brother and sister-in-law visited with us over Memorial Day weekend.
They took the the girls to the park and for a walk in Woodstock.
It was comforting to see our little ones play happily with their aunt and uncle.
I even had the sense of what other mothers are talking about when they describe "dropping the kids off with their grandparents."

We sat and talked when they came back from their "big adventure."
Tuli (one of the twins) took out "her" passport.
Pete thought it was odd that a child was playing with a passport.
I  wasn't in the room.
My husband told me later.
I replied, "It isn't my passport - it's my mom's."
This made sense to me...
Linda can't use it.
It has a picture of their grandmother before the chemo took her hair.
It has pretty pictures of eagles - which they love... and... suddenly I am my grandmother Kate
with a balloon of Santa floating around the house in March because it reminds her of Grandpa Joe who died the previous summer.
Floating objects.

We need to decide what to put on mom's gravestone.
The bag needs to be opened and stored or heaven forbid
some contents thrown out.
That is what I am afraid of... that this carefully packaged mausoleum
that my mother constructed of her "whole life,"
in the end will not be understandable to me.

I don't know if it will be good or bad if there are post-it-notes on everything.
The only way I knew who Linda's lawyer was when she got sick was  deciding that the post-it-note with a heart on it must indicate importance. When I called the number, the man on the other end of the phone said, "Linda must be very ill. I knew this day would come. I hoped it wouldn't be for a long time. How is she?" Not bread crumbs, post-it -notes.

I used to say that Linda should have invented post-it-notes.
When Bob and Linda had big buffet dinner parties, which was a couple times a year, Linda would rip up little pieces of yellow legal pads and write notes on them and put them in the silver serving bowls so that "the help" would know where to put the peas. Little floating pieces of paper in big silver bowls - directions. I hope there are directions in that bag. For the first time in my life, I am hoping for post-it-notes.

With regards,
Bob's Daughter