The Music Box

“I remember that music box. Maple frame, pretty little girl wearing a kerchief, holding a basket. Never did play the music it was supposed to.” My mom, sitting there in the faded easy chair, wrapped up in her favorite chenille throw, sat across from me. Time had not treated her well, and medically she hit the trifecta of illnesses. The assisted living facility never had a problem with their residents having a small Christmas tree, and this year was no different. “No matter what I did, I couldn’t get that key to turn.” Melancholy shaded her face.

My mother pulled the green blanket tighter. The small room had a single vent for heat, and it wasn’t enough for her paper-thin skin. It didn’t help that the medicines which kept her breathing also made her colder. “I remember when he bought that box. Dad thought that was the perfect Christmas present. When he saw it, he thought the picture on the lid looked like you.” Her smile dimmed a little thinking about my father. “You were his favorite, and he’d do anything for you.” The only time I remember wearing something like that was when she made me a blue kerchief, basically a diagonal half of a crocheted granny square, to wear to school in the chilly New York autumn days.

My father passed away six years earlier, and we never felt it more than around the holidays. All holidays on the calendar were days to celebrate as a family, if even just with hot dogs and baked beans. Certain traditions were his and his alone; no matter how we tried to keep them alive, they died along with him. The green and white sweater he always wore for Christmas day, the one my mom crocheted for him, doesn’t get the same attention it did in the past. The faint smell of his cologne was still present; the sweater was kept in a gallon-size freezer bag, but we hid it in her drawer because the sight of it would make her cry. Every Christmas photo in the albums showed him wearing it. The tin of guayaba still sat in yet another drawer, well beyond the expiration date, a silent reminder of what should have been. The rose at his service was on the dresser with a photo from the late 40s of him standing by a car.

“I remember,” her face brightened with reverie, “our first Christmas together, when our love was new. Your father gave me an ornament – a glass star – it wasn’t much, but since the war was still going on, it was all he could afford. He was maybe 14 at the time, but it meant so much when people had so little. It was always the first thing we put on the tree once we got married. Ah, but that was long ago; I haven’t seen it in years.”

I looked at my mother; her doctor there told me it wouldn’t be long, and to treat each moment with great dignity, because each one was numbered. Mom and I both missed my father terribly; we missed the laughter, we missed his misunderstandings, we missed his silly habits. We missed the way things used to be. We’re reminded, however, the past can’t be rewound just like that music box. Since it was Christmas eve, we were making the best of a dismal mood when things should have been cheery. I finished decorating the tiny two-foot tree, putting the little white lights on it and the shiny ornaments; she didn’t fool anyone; each year she said she didn’t want any decorations put up, no holiday tablecloths, nothing. She said she didn’t want a tree, but she enjoyed this final display, as inspirational as a nightingale telling his fairy tale.

“That looks nice,” she said. She wistfully turned and looked out the French casement window, as if seeing something beyond the garden wall at something not there. After the last hurricane, her house flooded, and we packed up what wasn’t damaged by water to get the house ready for sale. At that time mom decided that it was time to no longer worry about housework anymore. In the course of moving, many things just were misplaced, or just disappeared, possibly discarded as ruined. I often wondered where some of these memories ended up; we had unpacked most of the stuff, sold some items, and then gifted the rest to family and charities. Some things just remained a mystery.

I remembered how difficult it was to pack up and move an entire household. Furniture, appliances, clothing, knickknacks – everything had a sticky memory attached. Separating the two was difficult; I had to keep thinking about my own mortality one day. Do I really want my sons picking through my stuff without knowing if it “meant” anything? Something significant to the family storyline? A list was started; I started adding specific items that I wanted to go to certain people or institutions, what charities I encouraged, and what should be trashed. The best thing I did was to take my mom’s and dad’s shirts and other clothing and send it off to a company named ProjectRepat. They took all the material I sent and turned it into a giant king-sized quilt. I could point out what each square mean: that was the dress she wore to my wedding: she wore that to my son’s baptism; he wore that when he went bowling; I believe that was my grandmother’s lounging dress. When I first opened that box, I was so excited to see the finished product. And then, of course, I started to cry. It was a mishmash of emotions that I wasn’t prepared for at the time.

She noticed I was thinking about something – she always had a keen sense of intuition - she said, “Oh, and then there’s something over there – I’m not sure what it is. Someone dropped it off this morning.” Her vision had diminished to the point she could barely recognize people.

A flash of curiosity, subtle at first, hit me. Who would send her a package? The people at the front desk would have told me when I came in that morning. I looked under the table near the front door, and there was a tattered-looking box covered in brown paper. I couldn’t tell if it was one of the boxes from the sale of her house or not. I picked it up and set it on the table; There was no address, no writing, nothing – no clue as to what it might hold. Did one of my brothers bring it? I gingerly split open the top of the thin paper covering the box and peered inside.

There was crumpled up newspaper stuffed inside, the slight smell of Polo, and a memory I thought was nearly gone.

I instantly recognized the music box, just as I remembered during that Christmas of 1974 when I received it, the last Christmas in New York, the last one I spent with my childhood friends. There it was – the box - the little girl in all her innocence, feeding the little chicks from the basket on her arm. This was a magical moment of memory I wasn’t sure I was ready for. I twisted the winding key on the bottom which yielded to my movement. Pausing for a moment, I didn’t know if I really wanted to know what was in the box. My memories remained distant and hazy, and I wasn’t sure if I wanted sharp focus at this time.

I slowly opened the music box, and finally heard the melody, a distant memory of love’s refrain, and my tears fell, unbidden. I recognized the song; it “Sunrise, Sunset,” the song I danced to with my father at my wedding. That alone sent me sobbing. Something shiny remained at the bottom of the box. The antique star that my mom described with its mercury finish and bubbles of light tied with a red string.

I took it out and held it for moment, trying to channel the feeling my mom must have had when she first received it. I turned from the table and held it up for my mother to see. It was too late; she had already caught the final stardust back to my father; the smile on her face glowed in the light of the little tree, her eyes closed and perfectly still. The star sparkled as I looked out the window and heard the distant jingle of bells.