Remember to Find

Days of staying inside had taken their toll. It was still cold, but the sun was finally shining, and I decided to take the dog for a walk. After bundling up, we headed in the direction of the little neighborhood by the library. We walked past the house with the broken fence post where the dog always poked his head through to bark at us and were not disappointed. My pace quickened until we were a few houses away and out of sight. The moment the barking stopped, I heard what sounded like sobbing.

Sitting cross-legged on the front lawn of a little wooden house was a young woman. As soon as she heard the jangle of my dog’s leash, the sobs stopped. I wondered if she was holding her breath which made my heart hurt for her. I walked into the yard and saw her back heaving with suppressed cries.

“You okay,” I asked?

She took a deep breath and held up a small black notebook.

I sat down next to her, pulling the dog into my lap. Not sure what to say, I waited silently. As her breaths became more measured, she began to speak.

“This is my grandmother’s notebook. I gave it to her. See,” she said, opening the notebook and pointing to the inside front cover.

To Josephine Sr.

For your recipes

With love,

Josephine Jr.

My Life Recipes was written on the first page. There was even a little drawing of a rolling pin and whisk.

“I was named after her and she loved to bake. She raised me. And she’s dying.”

I opened my mouth to say I’m sorry, but she kept talking.

“For the last few months, she always had this notebook with her. She even took it to the hospital with her and wrote in it until…she couldn’t anymore.”

Thumbing through the pages, she showed me page after page filled with neat, curly cursive handwriting.

She sighed then said, “All of this is for me. It’s her recipes mixed in with her life lessons, all the ones she learned, all the ones she taught me. All the ones she would have taught me.”

She looked over at me for the first time. I smiled, an attempt to support her. She looked at the dog in my lap which seemed to give her the assurance she needed to continue.

Flipping the notebook open by the ribbon page marker, she began to read the entry aloud, “If you are reading this, I must be leaving or gone. You know how I feel about life and death, Josie. You stay until you’ve done what you need to do. I did what I had to do. I raised and buried a daughter. I raised you and you are my greatest joy. I don’t have much to leave you. I wrote down my recipes like you wanted. That’s when I realized that lessons are really just a recipe for life. So, I wrote those down too. I want you to have all the best of my recipes, Josie.”

Josie closed the notebook, stretched out her legs, and laid back in the grass. The awkward feeling of strangers having a personal conversation had passed. I now felt like a necessary bystander.

“She made the best cakes,” she said, eyes closed against the sun. “I’m going to miss her cakes.”

I nodded because I understood. I said, “No one can make it like Grandmas make it.”

“Exactly,” she said.

She was silent for several minutes. I wondered if I should leave. She must have felt my uncertainty because she sat up suddenly and hung her head.

“She never said a word about most of what she’s written in the notebook. I always saw her as a rock, but she really struggled. How did I not know that?”

A tear dropped from her eye and landed on her arm. She quickly wiped it away. She jerked her head towards me and looked me directly in the eyes for the first time.

“I got to the end of the notebook just before you showed up. Do you know what she wrote?” she whispered.

Of course, I didn’t know. I really wanted to know though. Only thirty minutes before, I was considering whether to go for a walk in the cold. Now, here I am sitting on the ground with a woman I do not know anticipating the answer to that question.

Josie breathed in deeply and said while exhaling, “Here, read it.”

She opened the notebook and flipped through the pages until almost at the end and held it out for me. I reached over to take it from her, feeling like I was about to read someone’s diary. I knew I couldn’t say no. Josie didn’t even know my name and was sharing this with me for reasons neither of us could understand. Moments like these call for no agenda.

Josie turned away as I began to read.

I have lived a long life. I have seen all kinds of people live all kinds of lives and I’ve learned something I think is very valuable. I want you to know because you are young enough to truly benefit from knowing something it took me years to understand.

I flipped the page which woke my dog. He stretched, stood up, and walked to Josie. After sniffing her for a moment, he curled up in her lap. She looked at me with surprise. I smiled and continued reading.

The way I see it, there are four stages to life:

1. Arrive

2. Seek

3. Find

4. Leave

The words themselves do not need much explanation, do they? There’s more to it though.

Each one of those stages is different for each person. Each person chooses how long they decide to stay in each stage. All of the stages are important unless you stay too long. Some people stay in Arrive for their whole lives. You see it in people that simply refuse or maybe just can’t figure out how to leave childhood and enter adulthood. There are also those people that just can’t seem to stay and sprint towards Leave. Both types go straight from Arrive to Leave without ever dipping a toe in Seek or Find.

The Seek stage is where it looks like most people spend most of life. You are here, Josie. Seek is where we experiment. It’s where we dig. It’s also where people get stuck. Their life becomes an unending search with no discovery. Finding is as important as Seeking, Josie. It’s the Find stage where we take what we’ve learned and apply it. Find is where we become better, deeper versions of us.

I looked up; eyes filled with tears.

“This is…,” I began but couldn’t find the word.

Josie said, “Turn the page.”

I had reached the last page of the book and thought the story was over. I turned the page. The back side of the last page read:

This is for you.

Keep looking, Josie.

But remember to Find.

“What’s this,” I asked, pointing to a small envelope taped to the inside back cover.

Josie shrugged, “I didn’t open it yet.”

I held the open notebook out to her.

“Do you want me to leave so you can open it privately?” I asked.

Josie put her hand over my dog as if she wasn’t ready for him to leave.

“No, not yet,” she said. “Will you open it for me?”

“Oh, I don’t think that’s for me to do,” I said, shaking my head.

“Please,” she said, sounding so childlike and vulnerable.

“You’re sure?” I asked.

She nodded.

Resting the notebook in my lap, I pulled the envelope from the back cover. The back was not sealed. As soon as I flipped the top tab up, the contents were revealed.

“It’s a check,” I said.

“A check?” Josie asked, clearly confused.

I pulled the check from the envelope and said, “It’s for $20,000.00”

“What?!” she called out, the question echoing in the cold, quiet air.

She pulled the check from my fingers. The action startled my dog who jumped back into my lap, knocking the notebook to the ground.

“It’s from her. I don’t understand. She doesn’t have this kind of money,” she said, her voice and hand trembling.

I had no idea what to do or say. Was I supposed to stay and be with her? Should I leave her now?

Josie began to cry again. I considered putting my hand on her shoulder but also felt it was the wrong move. I was becoming increasingly uncomfortable with my own inability to rise to the occasion. Then, I recalled something I once overheard someone say.

“How can I help you right now?” I asked, lacking the confidence required of such a question.

It seemed to help though. Josie took a deep breath and looked at the check again.

“I just need someone to listen.”

“I can definitely do that.”

She picked the notebook up, tucked the check into the pages, and told her story.

“I guess I grew up poor. We never had much but I don’t think I knew that until I was older. I was too young when my mom died to remember her. It was always just me and Joe. That’s what I called her: Joe. You can imagine the confusion this caused.”

She looked at me with a nostalgic smile. I returned the smile, nodding that I could indeed imagine the confusion caused.

“She just always made me feel safe and I didn’t feel like I was missing anything. It wasn’t until I grew up that I felt fear and want. She knew I was struggling to find my way. She tried to help me. She would say to me, “You just can’t seem to find the sun for the clouds.” She was right. I focused on the clouds. Why do the clouds feel safer sometimes? It shouldn’t be that way. We should crave the sunlight. But, instead, I followed clouds around and thought they were following me. Why did I do that?”

For the first time, I knew exactly what to say.

“Maybe that’s what she means by being stuck in the Seek.”

She nodded, a mixture of sadness and understanding in the recognition.

“I think that’s exactly what she meant.”

Josie grew quiet and lost in her thoughts. The moment of crossing paths was over. It was time for me to leave but I had to ask a question first.

“What are you going to do with the money?”

She put her hand over her mouth, a thinking gesture. She took her time. The answer was important. She felt it. I felt it.

“I think I’ll hang on to it for a while. I remember Joe saying that anytime there was a big change in your life, you need to wait six months before making any major decisions. I wonder if she knew I would remember. I bet she did.”

I stood. She did not stand and that was okay.

“Goodbye and good luck to you,” I said.

“Goodbye,” she said more to my dog than to me.

As I walked home, I thought about the weird, chance encounters happening every single day all around the world and how they change us. The Josephines were part of me now. I wondered if I had, in the end, served Josie in any way at all. Maybe she had served me more than I had served her. Either way, I wished her well and hoped that money led her to Find.