The Wallet

I was going through some of my parents things the other day and found my mother’s wallet. I have not seen it for a few years and had to smile when I picked it up. As I opened it, a flood of memories ran through my mind. -How many years she had this wallet, where it come from and the many times we were out places when she would pull it out and pay for lunches or afternoons shopping? How many errands did we run together, and ow many times did she pull out that wallet to give me money when I was younger and struggling through college or first starting out?

I opened her wallet and looked at her drivers liscene. It is amazing how beautiful she was, even when she was sick and only 85 pounds. The picture was taken in 2014 when she renewed her lisense for the last time. She never thought she was pretty. She once confided in my that she thought she was ugly, something I simply cannot fathom looking at her pciture. She was stunning, even at 73. Even sick.

My mother was beautiful as a child, a woman, and later as a senior. And I love when people tell me I look like her. Not only because she was beautiful, honestly I would love it even if she weren’t. But because to look like her is physical validation that she was mine and I was hers. And this makes me happy.

One day maybe I will use her wallet as nine. But that would require taking out all of her things that she has tucked away and hidden in all the pockets and places. So for now, I will hold onto it, and smile every once in a while when I find it, and see her beautiful face in the pcitures held within.

Life is short. As I attend another service this weekend I go back to the advice of the Hospice grief counselor years ago: Remember those whom you have lost with affection and love. One day those memories will make you smile much more than cry. Take time to grieve, but remeber it is a pkace to visit, not a place to live.