He turned on the light and smiled at the king-sized bed. It was way too big for such a small room. But it certainly was a far sight better than those two twin beds.
The door to the closet was partially open. He opened it all the way and stared at the tightly packed row of clothes. On the top shelf, he noted only a few things, and decided to start there and work his way down. He took down several hats and sweaters and then another box which was on the far left of the shelf. It was the hat box which contained his mother’s red hat – the one she wore for the first time, the day he gave his valedictorian speech in grade twelve.
“You looked great that day, Mom,” Henry muttered. As Henry reached up one last time, he wondered how on earth his mother had ever been able to reach up there. The shelf was so high and she was so much shorter than him.
Next, he took out the clothes and piled them onto the huge bed, fully emptying the closet except for shoes, slippers and shoe boxes on the floor. He would sort out those things later. As he stepped backwards out of the closet his eye caught the white rose almost glowing next to his mother’s treasure chest sitting on the dresser. He stepped over to the dresser and looked at the rose. The water had evaporated long ago leaving a white mineral deposit on the inside of the vase. Amazingly however, the rose appeared as fresh as the day he saw it when his mother passed away. He picked it up and smelled it. Its scent still sweet as ever. He replaced the flower and looked at the chest. He was going to check it out last time he was here. He had seen his mother put many things into it over the years and often she said it contained treasures of the heart. He recalled once again that the last memory he had of the box was when his mom had put his dad’s death certificate in there.
Henry remembered too, that the chest was locked.
“I wonder what treasures of the heart Mom has locked inside?” He muttered, as he began to survey the top of the dresser in search of the key.
The small jewellery box resting on the other end of the dresser caught his eye. He lifted the lid and stirred his finger around the jewellery inside. At first he missed seeing the key as it had worked its way to the bottom and was covered by rings, earrings and two gold chains. Henry picked up the box and emptied its contents on top of the white crocheted runner on the dresser. The very last thing to fall on the heap of sparkling jewellery was the tiny bronze key.
“Aha!” Henry said, as a feeling of discovery surged through him. He picked up the key, inserted it into the keyhole and the latch sprung open.
He felt like an intruder. These were his mother’s private articles and he was about to enter her world, her private thoughts and see things which she considered to be precious memorabilia. Henry raised the lid and slowly removed the contents, giving each one consideration and thought, trying to recount or relive what his mother was thinking as she placed them inside.
The third item following his father’s death certificate and insurance policy was a folded letter. He recognized it as the letter he’d left to his mother about aborting his plan to go to Ottawa. Many times since then Henry wondered what would have happened had he carried out his plan. Would he have found Jenny? How different things might be now.
But he had found a new love who had restored his life.
He began to think on Julean and how quickly she stole his heart, and he fell in love again.
Henry smiled as he re-read the letter and the precious time they shared each trying to outwit the other. The tear stain in the bottom left corner of the letter drew his attention.
“Mom’s trademark,” he chuckled. He rubbed the stain with his forefinger, then brushed the tear rolling down his cheek with the back of his hand. He folded the letter and placed it on the dresser then continued sifting through the rest of the items.
He noticed Julean’s remembrance card in the box. He hadn’t read it for a long time. He picked it up and gazed at his lovely wife’s picture on the front of the card and was immediately overcome by the sorrow of her absence. He opened the card and read the comments that he and his children had written. He smiled at Justin’s comment that he wanted his mommy to come and tuck him in each night, and that she could take the teddy bear he gave her at the hospital to heaven.
The verses he wrote he still felt so deeply:
That life would go on without her, but nothing would be the same. How sad are the tears that love her, how silent are the tears that fall…
Henry couldn’t read anymore. He wiped the tears away with the back of his hand and peered inside the chest. He took out more items one by one and finally reached in for the last item. It looked like the death certificate of some relative. It was difficult to read as both the writing and colour of the yellow paper had faded:
The Death Certificate
Of
Louise Wagner
1863 - 1945
Henry thought for a moment. Grandma, his mother’s mother. He was only six when she died and he had very few memories of her.
And then it came to him that the item he was really looking for was the pink envelope. He still recalled holding it in this room when his dad died and the warmth it gave off.
Mom sure didn’t want me to see that letter. I wonder where it went?
As he thought still further on it, he remembered that the envelope had given off a lilac odour…such a familiar fragrance. That was Jenny’s favourite flower. She liked the smell so much she used that scent for her perfume as well. But there was something else…
Henry raised his head and peered at the reflection of himself thinking, and then it came to him as if from his image inside of the mirror…
I smelled that fragrance the other day when praying over Mom! But Mom never put on perfume as Dad had been scent sensitive to the odour of any perfume.
I wonder…
Henry turned as if led and walked out of the room and back to the kitchen.
Could Mom have had that letter with her the day she died? Could that have been what I was smelling. Could that have been what Mom wanted to talk to me about and give to me!
But, but…she must have had it in her apron pocket…which was thrown away at the funeral home!
And just as despair began to wash over him he saw a shadow move towards the phone on the wall. There was Julean her hand reaching to the phone.
It RANG!
Henry was nearly startled out of his wits! It rang again. Julean smiled and disappeared as he reached out to her. His hand pierced the air landing on the telephone receiver!
He picked it up half way through its third ring…
“Hello, is this Mr. Pederson.?”
“Yes, it is.”
“I’m Scott Allan and I work at Speer’s Funeral Home. I called your gallery and they said that you could be reached at this number.”
“Okay, that’s fine…what’s this about?”
“Mr. Manser, the assistant manager talked to me about fifteen minutes ago to check if any of your mom’s belongings were here, I told him they weren’t. When I spoke with him later he said that you were really interested in the apron your mom was wearing and that it was unfortunate that the clothes had been discarded.”
An eerie feeling started crawling up Henry’s spine, he knew something supernatural was going on.
“Go on, Scott.”
“Well, this may be hard to believe, but when we lifted your mom off the floor she was so stiff and light it was easy to transfer her to the bag on the stretcher. But as we did so something quite unbelievable happened.
“While she was six inches off the floor it seemed as if her apron was being untied and it simply slipped off her and fell to the floor. Both Ron and me saw it. In fact Ron even commented out loud on it, ‘Did you see what I just saw?’
“We see a lot of things in this business, but that one was kinda scary. When we were driving back to the funeral home Ron and I talked about it, and thought that perh
aps we should have told you what happened, but then we didn’t want to frighten you. The main thing was that the apron was left there. When I picked it up to put it on the chair I felt a letter inside the pocket. And I have to tell you, the letter sure felt warm.
“We thought for sure you would see it on the chair. Anyway, if the apron hadn’t slipped off your mom, it just may very well have been discarded along with the rest of her things.”
“Thanks for phoning Scott…”
Henry hung up the phone, certain that both his guardian angel and Julean’s spirit must be having a good laugh over this!
“Unbelievable,” he muttered as he turned to the kitchen table. All the chairs had been pushed under the table hiding the seats. He pulled one back out and then a second…there was his mom’s apron!
My God, he might very well have missed it, and it probably would have been taken away for sure next week when the movers from the Salvation Army came..
He picked up the apron, and sure enough inside the left pocket was a pink envelope. It had a bobby pin slipped over the end. Henry looked at it, but didn’t realize that the pin was intended to keep its contents from slipping out. It was the same letter he had seen and held in his mother’s bedroom. When she snatched it from his hand she said that it was from her girlfriend. Henry was confused. Why would she want to give that to him? Surely this couldn’t be what she wanted to give him. Maybe this is nothing after all…
He looked down at the letter and saw the red stamp across the envelope partially covering the addressee. The only name he could make out was “Pederson.” Henry didn’t take the time to look to the left corner and read where it was from as he was distracted by the bobby pin at the other end of the envelope,
He turned it over. “It’s still sealed. She never even opened it.
I wonder why?”
Still holding the envelope, Henry stepped backwards and sat down. Henry glanced at the letter again. He believed that the letter was his mother’s, so he didn’t think to look at the addressee’s name.
He flipped the letter over again and as he debated if he should open the letter, the lilac scent, the warmth, and the heftiness of the envelope aroused his curiosity. Yet, he couldn’t understand all the fuss over this letter and the apron. The attendants being frightened by it and Julean’s presence… Why?
Henry looked down and absently tore open the end of the envelope opposite the edge where the bobby pin was. He pulled the letter out and laid the envelope back on the table beside him, unsuspecting that the envelope still contained a very important item.
The pale purple paper gave off a strong lilac scent.
“One of Mom’s friends must like lilacs too.”
He unfolded the letter and separated the two pages. His eyes at first noted the name at the bottom of the second page: Love, Jenny.
“Jenny? I never knew mom had a girlfriend by that name.”
Fatigue and hunger were more on the doorstep to his brain than reading about some girl talk and distant friend of his mother’s whom he’d never met.
As Henry stood, he skimmed its contents getting ready to discard it when an indescribable feeling ignited and crept forth from the very core of his being. His mind was in a daze, as if in a fog that spanned time. As haze lifted, it captured some distant familiarity – the handwriting, the sweet smell of lilac, its love filled contents.
“What on earth is this?” His mind reset, shifting from a letter to his mom from her girlfriend, into the reality of the moment; the surge of energy he felt moments ago accelerated from a crawl to an explosion, thrusting his head sharply back. He separated the pages, holding one in each hand. His eyes flashed to the signature again on the bottom of the second page – Love Jenny – and then to the top of the page in his left hand – Dear Henry.
“This can’t be Jenny? My Jenny!? How could this be after all these years? Oh, how I waited for a letter from you. How could this be?”
Henry stood there frozen, unable to think or move.
Ever so slowly, he returned his gaze to the letter and read the writing at the top of the letter again, making sure that his mind was not just playing some trick on him: Dear Henry.
“It’s true! This is incredible!”
Demanding more proof, he picked up the envelope to see who it was addressed to. As he did so, the bobby pin flipped off the envelope and something flew out cutting through the charged air. For a moment he thought it was the bobby pin, but it was a shiny object fluttering off, as if it had wings to the other side of the table.
“What is that?” Henry rushed over to the other side of the table and looked down. A shiny object reflected the light from the ceiling overhead. As he bent down, he hesitated and leaned closer.
“This just can’t be! This cannot be possible!”
He picked up the pewter angel, his eyes transfixed on the sight before him…
Reality as Henry knew it faded away and was replaced by a spell that enveloped and carried him into a world far, far away – a world of guardian angels. An angel hanging on a Christmas tree in the window of Eaton’s department store. There it was; his angel and Jenny’s angel. It was exactly what he was looking for…and here it was again…
He brought the angel before him and read the inscription.
“Yes, it’s the very same angel I sent to Jenny.” He wondered if it was his and Jenny was returning it. He lowered the angel and studied the front of the envelope again and read the return address:
R.R. #21,
Ottawa, Ontario
He would have died to have known that address back then. His eyes lowered to the centre of the envelope.
“Yes, it is addressed to me,” Henry said, with a tone of puzzlement. He furrowed his brow, “Why on earth didn’t Mom give it to me back then? It was mine. The letter I had been waiting for, for so…”
For the first time in as long as he could remember, he was annoyed and upset with his mother.
There had to be some explanation.
Chapter Forty-Four
As Henry sat down again, he laid the envelope on the table and picked up the letter and gave it a sharp flip. Years of being folded in the closed position caused it to spring back. His left hand grabbed the bottom edge of the letter and pulled down unfolding it all the way. He held the letter open in that position as he read in earnest.
December 18, 1956
Dear Henry
For days now I was thinking about writing another letter to you. I have always hesitated thinking perhaps you may have found another girlfriend. Today, however, my uncertainty went away, I was so excited.
Our school principal this year decided to have a Christmas tree decoration project to get us all in the spirit of Christmas. He had a huge evergreen tree set up in the foyer of the school. He then asked all the students to bring in an ornament and hang it on the tree. I took a metallic blue Christmas ball on which was a hand-painted image of Santa and his reindeers zooming through the sky. When I got to school and saw what my friend Tammy brought I just knew it was meant for me to send you this as a gift and write you one more letter.
I couldn’t believe she had a pewter angel and with the perfect inscription on the bottom… When you read it you will know what I mean. Every night I pray to my guardian angel to protect you and to bring us together again. Oh Henry the gift is perfect and I just know it was meant to be.
All day, today, the snow was falling so heavily and covered everything in sight with a soft white cozy blanket. As night fell, the sky was still filled with millions of fluffy snowflakes… But moments ago when I looked out my bedroom window, the sky had cleared and the snowflakes turned into millions of twinkling stars. And most exciting of all, was the star to the east, it shone so brightly, tonight, and somehow I felt its beam was travelling to your heart telling you how much I miss you and my deepest wish that we could be together again.
The other day, I’ll Be Home For Christmas was playing on the radio, it just sent goose bumps through me. Oh, how I wish you could be here at Christmastime. I so loved our summer walks together and can only imagine how wonderful it would be holding your hand in the winter time…and we could make angels in the snow so close together that our wings would intertwine… And to sit by the fire, listen to records and snuggle in your arms… Oh, how romantic it all would be.
Oh Henry, there is so much I want to say and tell you, but I am no longer sure of your love. If you have someone else please ignore this letter, I do not want you to feel bound to me. I want you to be free to choose. Since you haven’t written, I cling to the hope that you still care, but I need to know.
You must be busy at Mr. Engelmann’s store with Christmas just around the corner and everyone preparing for Christmas dinner. I remember how much you love working for him and what great business ideas you have always come up with. I so often think about how enthused you get when you think of something new to try. I just know that someday you will be a huge success in business.
School is going fine. The students are nice and I have made some wonderful girlfriends. The other weekend we had a sleepover party and we just had great fun. I like Ottawa, it is a pretty city, and I love how the Canal runs through the centre of the city. Last week when I went shopping with mom we walked through the park there and saw so many people skating…what a beautiful sight. I wish you were here and we were skating together.
I am so excited about the angel I am sending off tomorrow. As I write this letter, I am holding it in my hand. I want it to carry my love for you. When you receive it, you will feel my love by its warmth. I have already kissed it several times, too. You can just faintly see traces of my lipstick on the upper wing. Place your lips on mine. I just know my guardian angel will somehow return your kiss to me.
I made a special wish to the bright star of the east tonight, to send out my love to you. I hope and pray that you get this letter and my gift. Every night I pray for my guardian angel to talk to yours, so together they find some way to bring us to together again.
The Angelic Occurrence Page 41
