My Mom Passed Away. Cleaning Out Her Office Uncovered A Treasure Trove of Love

About a year ago, my mom passed away due to pancreatic cancer. After she was diagnosed with cancer, I moved in to help her and spent the last 6 months of her life with her. It was a very special time with her that I’ll never forget.

After she passed away, I waited a few months for the inevitable, but at some point I knew I had to clean out her office. It was her “special” place where she did her writing, kept her mail, paid her bills, etc. I had rarely ever set foot in that office for decades. She always kept it locked as it had all things important to her in it.

The office was stuffed full of 84 years of life’s things. It took some time to even begin to figure out how to clean it all out and yet keep the important things. Shelf by shelf, box by box, drawer by drawer, I began to separate things to throw or keep. Within a few hours I found some special things like her baptism certificate, wedding license, her 1950 yearbook, tons of old photos and even her high school diploma. It was amazing seeing these things for the first time in my life. I even found a mother’s day card that my mom had given to her mom. She probably kept it when she cleaned out her mother’s office. It was exhausting emotionally to go through so many of her things. It was past midnight and I was about done cleaning for the day but unexpectedly I came across two locked wooden cedar boxes. Eureka! My curiosity and excitement was exploding because I thought there must be something of great value in these two boxes. Both had keyholes but after some hunting around, I couldn’t find any keys that would open them. I used a large screwdriver to pry the first one open. What I found was a treasure trove of love letters she had written!

The first wooden box contained over 50 love letters that my mom had written to my dad before they were married. Each letter was a time capsule with words and sayings we don’t use anymore from around the 1949 – 1951 timeframe, the year they were married. Each letter was meticulously dated and each was stored in order, oldest to newest, up to the very last one dated 10 days before they married. The last words on the last love letter written to my dad before they were married were “God bless you my honey”. There was one additional item in the box, a small plastic bag with a lock of my mother’s hair in it. My mom had red hair and the lock of hair was still a vibrant red. I was surprised that it wasn’t faded in color.

The second box contained about another 50 love letters that my dad had written to my mom. It was an amazing view into the world that they lived in. Both lived on farms and so much of the letters were about the crops and the weather and family get-togethers. I haven’t read all the letters, but over time I will. The last words on the last love letter written to my mom before they were married were “I prayed to God for a good wife and mother, and my prayer has been answered”. My parents were married for 64 years when my mother passed away. She was the best mother I could ever have. My dad is still alive but very old and his memory sometimes fades. Sometimes he asks, where is mom? I tell him, she’s all around us, then my dad remembers her passing, then nods and says after a long pause, yes.