My Mom's Things

Tonight I started going through some boxes of

my Mom's things.

I found notes I had written her when I was small.
I found my baby teeth.

I found all sorts of things that reminded me of her.

I cried when I opened her earrings.

I saw earrings that I bought with her and for her.

I saw a pair of earrings

that she was wearing just a month or two ago.

I told her how much I liked them.

Jokingly, she told me, they'll be yours soon.

I didn't really want them if it meant not

having her.

I found band-aids that she bought that were

latex free. I'm allergic to latex. She never had any

latex free band-aids at her house.

I found a tin full of the mentos that she used to

eat to help her stomach.

She loved putting candy in tins.

I found some pocket date books that she'd kept.

One from last year, this year, and next year.
I read the things she wrote before she was diagnosed
with cancer. Dates and times
she worked, trips up here
to visit. Her trip to watch the kids so
that I could run the Boilermaker.
I read entries for this year, our trip to Joe's
Crab Shack.

Our trip to see Mary Poppins.

As she was getting sicker, her entries were fewer.

Mostly it said "Infusion" for when

she had chemo.

The two things she talked about the most, Joe's

Crab Shack and Mary Poppins were written in those

date books.

Finally, I found a necklace that she always wore

when I was little. It's a Mustard Seed in a glass ball.

I remember playing with it when I was small.

I would ask her, "Mommy, what is that?"

She would explain to me that it

was a mustard seed. She wore it, because the Bible says

that if you have faith like a mustard seed, you can

move mountains.

The last time she wore that necklace was three

weeks before she died.

I'd found it upstairs in her room. I brought it to her, so that

she could wear it. She'd been struggling to keep her

faith at the end. She cried as she held

that tiny seed. She shared that she was trying

to have faith like a mustard seed.

Seeing that necklace, putting it around my neck, and looking

through her things tonight made me miss her so much.

I can't wait to see her again.