My Mother's Trunk

I was sitting at the computer doing some work, when I heard my mother groaning behind me. I got up to get her settled in her bed, and give her a little more water before she falls back to sleep. She is bed ridden and has three broken bones from the cancer that has riddled her body. She sleeps most of the day because she is on morphine for the pain. I am thankful for every moment that I get to spend with her as she prepares for her final journey home.





Memories from my childhood come rushing back to me as I take care of my mother. One such memory, is my mothers' old trunk.





When I was a child, my parents had an old trunk in the closet. In that trunk were some old pictures, the family picture album, a few papers, my mothers' wedding dress, my dads pen striped suit, and his sailor suit from the Navy.





There wasn't a lot in that old trunk, but for some reason I would be drawn back over and over again to look at those old things and my imagination would run wild. I would look at my Dads' sailor suit and think of Gene Kelly in a sailor suit dancing along with Frank Sinatra, . I remember getting in trouble for wearing his sailor pants to school once and then trying to sneak them back into the trunk. His pin striped suit made me think of Edward G. Robinson in a gangster movie. My mothers' wedding dress made me think of Betty Grable or Katherine Hepburn in an old movie. It was not a traditional wedding gown, it was a peach suit made of a delicate material with a belt in the middle. I used to try it on and stand in front of the mirror seeing myself as one of those old movie queens. I would even put on gloves and bright liptstick sometimes, and hold one of my mothers cigarettes in my hand like they did in the movies. (that was a time when for some reason, they managed to make smoking look glamorous)

Several years ago, the trunk and all of its contents were ruined when a flood hit where it was being stored. I was so sad to hear that everything was ruined in that old trunk. It held such fun and wonderful memories for me.

Today, I still hang on to those memories and rely on them from time to time to help me get through the tough times.

I just hope that my kids have something to hang on to as wonderful memories about me, the same way I hang on to memories of my Mom, my Dad, and that old trunk.