Treasure Chest, Part One.

I had put off and procrastinated long enough, I had a stack of papers waiting to be processed, and now I sat down to put it off no further.  It seemed simple enough a task and before long, I had neat little piles of things, and began to mull my resources.

Mundanely enough, I went to get the plastic file box that I use to sort my papertrail and was musing about returning to some of my former filing habits.

As I was looking for a possible suitable second box to repurpose for better sorting; I checked out the several that I have accumulated over the years - some of them have permanent inhabitants, and that is OK.  But I knew that wasn't the case for all of them, and I was looking for low hanging fruit for my repurposing adventures.  I'm frugal with everything.  ;-)

And there, in the second box I opened, I found the jackpot.  It had a binder and some stuff in a pendaflex hanging thingie, and some envelopes... easy enough to get to use without major additional collateral messes to address.  I hit a winner.

As I was taking things out, I'm somewhat mindful of what I'm removing, and I notice some old holiday stickers and address labels from 2008 ... and chuckle ... I was trying to be so compliant, I hadn't given up on trying to fit in and be a good whatever I was supposed to be to please everybody else that doesn't exist... yeah, I was still doing that.

I found my eldest son's SAT scores - no idea why they are in that box, but after the divorce I never quite have sorted everything with a fine toothed comb - set aside ...

And as my mind mulled these things and G64/7 different *other* things all at once, I noticed two little envelopes in the bottom of the box.

...

They were sealed - and addressed - to C and H.

...

I picked them up.  They weren't empty - I expected them to have been opened.  I could feel the muscles in my forehead frown at the mystery.  They looked like my handwriting.

...

I opened the one with the C written on the front of it.

When I say opened, I mean, I tore through a sticker of a smiling Robbie The Robot Analogue affixed to the back; all the while wondering what on Earth could be in such a tiny sealed envelope in the bottom of such an improbable box in my closet on this Wednesday night of high stakes paperwork wrangling and filing ... a thank you card.

::blink::

Really?

Who could have written a thank you ...

Oh my god ... my eyes met the inside and I sat on the floor with my mouth wide.

C -

Thank you for being the most loving and very best kind of friend there is.

So lucky you are mine.

Jessica



::silent tears::

I sit there crying for a long little while.  Now holding the other card and wondering, who is H?  Could it possibly be another card from her?  No ... I still can't believe I'm holding this one.  Can't believe I hear her voice read the words in my head.  Can't believe I see her handwriting.  I'm holding it ... it's so surreal.  I'm awake.

I opened the second envelope, and another smiling robot - this time in a spaceship - was torn asunder to satisfy my curiosity.

I was rewarded with an identical card.

H -

Thank you for all of the yummies and for your outrageous generosity.  And thank you for being a friend to Cristal.

You are very special.

Jessica

::more tears::

Now I am totally hysterical.

I'm stunned.  Floored describes it; as I sat there, dumbfounded on the floor with tears streaming and sobs wracking and heart breaking all over the place: just awash in so many unregisterable feelings.

And then I smiled as a single thought like a bell rang in my mind: you have the most incredible karma, if ever you doubt that, Cristal, here is your proof.

I'm astonished, overfilled with gratitude and heart broken again.  But that happens just a little bit every time I think of her - and it registers yet again, that she is gone forever.  But here is a mystery.  There is no date on the card.  How could I come into possession of these and why wouldn't I have opened them?

So strange.

Who could H be?  There is only one possible person, but that only deepens the mystery for me.  If the other letter, as I suspect, was intended for her stepdad, how would I have come to possess it?  Why?  Wouldn't she give it to him?

The biggest mystery to me is why they remained sealed for so long.

As I started to go through the papers in search of the answers to that mystery, I came across other artifacts from the past that I can't write about here, but will (there will be a part two, I promise). That brings the date range of the box from 2004-2008/9.  Well during my time as a married person.

I wonder now, was this when she was still living here?  That is the only sense I can make of why I would had a thank you card for H - he lived here too.  But why would I still have them, ostensibly ten years later, and only find and open them almost two years after her death?

I'm sitting here wondering all these things; and the dreams I have had about her lately have only kept her on my mind.  I know the anniversary of her death is in only four days. I know I have felt each of the 700+ days and felt the loss of her light in the world.  I have mourned, and celebrated; I have cherished and recounted; but nothing will place her hand in mine again.  What I can have to hold is only the miracle of finding her and having her love for ten years of my life.

And this, this little gift from the Universe that I found buried in an unlikely place.