Lost Then Found

I first landed in his weary hands as a stocking stuffer, almost an after-thought of a gift. The other presents needed to be plugged in, turned on, ruled by a complex set of operations. By contrast, within my sleek, black covers, I was holding an invitation for the soul. I was fed by the human heart and by marks that spoke volumes or cried quiet tears.

He found solace in running his chapped hands over my smooth pages, my blank pages, coddled between black covers. I had the appearance of being protective and serious. His touch told me much. As a youth, he had always been keen with words. His three older brothers, each with dominion over him, would make fun of his preference to spend time with words. He could never explain that he was journeying, outward, inward, enchanted by the spaces he could inhabit. Sometimes, he would keep company with his sisters while they did the domestic chores that daughters were obliged to. The doting sisters coddled him, containing him and his desires to find joy and security in the world that lived beyond their immediate, desperate needs. Their youth was fraught with the violence and tragedies of a civil war.

It was approaching spring, and like the first tender shoots that emerge from the hard, frozen ground, I was finally extricated from the pile of things that had amassed on the desk. When I was closed, I could only get a sense of him, somewhere nearby but not wholly present. All I had was that first warm touch. He would visit his desk once a week to take care of practical matters, keeping the books, paying the endless stream of bills. He did his work diligently, occasionally listening to simple piano music, in a low volume. He also favored the music sung in his mother tongue. A dreamer with an exceptional penchant for the practical, he was. I sensed he was mostly satisfied with his life. That is until a deep darkness started to envelope him.

That’s when he turned to me. I was opened now for the second time by his sure hands. Next, he excavated a gold pen, which he rarely allowed himself to use. As in his youth, he marked me as his own with his given name, not his naturalized moniker. His penmanship, although a little shaky, was beautiful with a geometric precision and just a hint of artistic flair.

Spring - “I write this in the last stage of my life. I can no longer count on the vitality and capacity of my body. Still, it surprises me and I am not sure I can accept what my body can no longer do. I am saddened by this inevitable fact. What is truly frightening me, however, is what is happening with my mind.

Today, I had that eerie experience, again; this is the third time in just as many months. I am driving the Cadillac and all of sudden have a startling realization that I do not know where I am. Yet another part of me knows that I have been on this road, hundreds, maybe a thousand times before."

He shared his vulnerabilities with me and I guarded them in service of him.

Summer - “Today, I thought of the house in Philadelphia. The one that second brother bought from me. The one that he died alone in. I tried and failed to recall the name of the neighbors, an elderly couple, Mr. and Mrs….They loved the children, and they would share food with our family. Americans don’t do that. Thankfully, I can remember they were from Italy.”

Sometimes only a word or two was written. He’d forgotten what it was like to have a friend like me. He could turn to me in all matters great and small, it was my emptiness that allowed me to be able to receive.

Winter - “Wife says that I don’t talk enough. She complains about my silence. She admonished me at dinner, but I don’t like to speak of matters like this with my meal. Talking can happen, always. Eating is a sacred practice. Out of my respect for her, I have never taken a bite of food without her presence. Conflicts must be set aside while eating. But what can I say? I start a story, only to discover that I cannot recall what happened just this afternoon. I feel so ashamed. I am failing her. I am also clouded with my worries, shocked by what I can’t remember.”

I could hold it all, and there were special and sweet moments which kept him buoyed and hopeful.

Spring - “Yesterday, my first grandson was born. My son wants to give him my name. I thought I might never see the day when I had a rightful heir. It is strange to think about how important it used to be, when it was a family’s greatest hope for a son to be born. Then, for the son to have a son. That was considered wealth. Those things no longer have the same importance. As it should. I love all my children equally. I love all my grandchildren equally. A grandchild! Wonderful. I felt like a younger version of myself. I remembered when I was strong and intelligent and filled with pride. I guess love has that kind of power.”

It was around this time that we had less and less encounters. He started getting frustrated by his wobbly handwriting, no longer consistent. Sometimes he would just hold me, his palms nestled me against his chest and we would get lost staring blankly out the window. He would occasionally turn red in the face, as if burning from embarrassment. From his touch, I could tell he was outraged at the injustice of his situation. He had toiled away for so long, so many hours. Endless, monotonous, manual labor.

Fall -“I am really just a shell of myself. I have been held together by my love for family and my dedication to take care of them to the best of my ability. They are grown and able. Perhaps I am no longer needed, so I can disappear along with the knowledge I used to have available to me."

His thoughts seemed like formless clouds in the sky, ever shifting. He literally was disappearing, but he was a determined and committed man. As the worries about his health deepened, he had an inkling of what he wanted to do. He created a strategy to squirrel away sizable sums of cash in various parts of his office. Instead of only holding his nostalgia and grief, I was the keeper of a different type of secret.

He could still write basic words in English. He wrote down the whereabouts of his little nests of cash into a neat list in the hopes that one day one of his children or grandchildren would find me. He meant to tell at least one of them about what he was doing, but he rarely spoke to them on the phone. His progeny were in far off places, in the four corners of the world. On the occasional visit, there was too much going on and well, he couldn’t remember what he couldn’t remember.

This is how he went about handling the legacy that would go directly from his hands to his children’s hands. No wills, no lawyers, no middlemen. Twenty crisp, newly minted hundred dollar bills were stashed within a photo frame which housed his stark, black and white wedding photo. A couple thousand here, another there, sometimes it was a random amount, the culmination of cash he had on hand that he hadn’t spent, save the additional wrench set he didn’t need. Each hiding place was sparingly written in the list. The last entry simply said, “File #2.”

I knew all these secrets and I prided myself on being able to hold them. I knew the power of words and intention. For the next seven years, no one even glanced my way. I would sometimes hear the soft cries and sadness from his children who now visited the desk to manage his previous duties. I got buried under mounds of junk mail, bank statements, and life in general. There were a few times that I could have been noticed, but the confusion of my owner, who had breathed life into me with his confidence, seemed to reverberate through the whole family. The whole room became of catchment for found and lost things, dust, and stink-bugs.

Many years after his hands had turned cold forever, one of his children came along. Her longing was to relinquish the confusion, the sadness, and grief of losing such a man. Every item in the room was considered and evaluated. Most were trash. Some items, however, brought a smile or laugh and were considered small treasures. The time had come to fulfill my duty. But what if my black covers acted as some sort of camouflage instead, landing me in a heap of outdated newspapers and cable bills in the paper recycling? NO! I had to trust my intrinsic value. I had to know that when I landed in another set of feeling hands, they would know. I tried my best to worm my way out from underneath the burden. But literally, I had no legs to stand on or wiggle with. Was it coincidence or chance, I still wonder? A gust of wind came in through the open window, newly liberated from its dust-drenched blinds. It was just enough to shuffle a few pieces of paper, enough to reveal a hint of me. A little glint of light, hit my gleamy, black surface and I was noticed, picked up, and opened.

She delighted in the evidence of his beautiful penmanship. She relished the idea that he had written something and she hoped that he had found relief and comfort from whatever moved pen to paper. A faint memory of purchasing the notebook came to her. It must have been over a decade since she gifted the little black notebook; hmm, it was almost as an after-thought. On the last page was found the neat little list. A handful of lines with things that she was uncovering in the office, his short-hand numerals next to each item. The befuddled look, a shrug of the shoulders told me she didn’t quite understand. Then it came to her like the sweet whispers and soft melodies he had sung when he would comforted her back to sleep as a child. Her smile broadened she flowed into that feeling. She re-examined the wedding photo she had thrown in a box of important keepsakes. With careful consideration, she removed the backing to find twenty, crisp but not new, hundred dollar bills. She laughed and cried filled with remembering.