Posted 8 years ago
SpiritBear
(813 items)
Several months ago I was in my basement on video-chat with someone. The time down there was interesting.
It was dimly lit with lamps I had hung up as there had been only a 60 watt bulb across the divided room.
Spider webs clung from support columns, beams, the 1940s furnace, shelves built in the middle of the room, & c.
The crumbling cement floor was covered in its own debris, as well as various items the cat had been playing with as we were in the second room, which is normally closed off and entered only by myself and the cat (as in, it's pretty much abandoned seasonal storage, my mom's things she doesn't use, and things from when I was younger.
It became an interesting time when I found a dose glass and put it on a shelf, then went back through totes as I video-chatted and suddenly found in a tote I opened from under another tote.... the same dose glass, which was no longer on the shelf.
Anyway, after shrugging that off, I moved to the opposite side of the shelves that divide the room and in the dimming afternoon filtering in through uncleaned, small, basement windows, set into an old box of stuff I was never allowed to look in.
I looked at things from my mom and learned much more about her, coming to a greater understanding from her journals (from when she was in college) which were letters to herself, as well as the remains of books she had been writing (I believe it was my father who burned most of her writings).
I found photos of her back in the day, vet bills including a $50 surgery bill, cars she and her family owned including of when my grandpa was alive (he's been dead since the '70s), photos of my sister's father (he's dead) and of my estranged sister, drawings, miscellaneous photos of people and my young self and pets, etc.
It was evident the box had not been gone through or added to in 15 years.
Near the very bottom, this very beat-up 1861 marriage certificate was mixed in with old photocopied documents in some genealogical attempt of my mom's to map out our family tree. This one had no supporting documents and was by itself.
My last name is not on this document, but my mom's grandma's last name (Walker) is. The document pertained to my family's history, as such, when in 1891 a Thorp and Walker got married-- the list of weddings on the back.
The document dates to 1861, when Saphronia Parsons and Harrison Thorp got married on June 8th in Napoleon, Ohio.
Overall, a very important and rare piece of family history that may be the link to the stolen family Bible I never got to see.
It now resides in an archival-quality sleeve of a scrapbook in my room rather than a humid basement on the floor.
Good save, Spirit. [;>)
I loved your story! Say hello for me to the resident entity who likes to play jokes on you..... :-))))
That was a well written post, told with emotion I could get into and FEEL. The sign of a very good writer. May your mom, in beginning stories, had the gift too. Someday maybe you'll read them, and feel yourself in them!
Loved this post.
Correction---ooops--"Maybe your mom" ( I meant to say up there)
Thank you all for your kind comments.
Nevada, even my mom had forgotten about it. It was as a new discovery to her.
EfesGirl, it was quite confusing but amusing. The object also resides in my room.
PostCardCollector, I tried to make this one more interesting. Many of her works are hand-written and incomplete/mixed up, so it would take some time to read them.