Secrets of a Jewelry Box

I have a fascination with my Mother's jewelry boxes. I can't possibly explain why but I think most women, as little girls, have stories of sifting through their grandmothers and mothers jewelry boxes? I was always in my grandmother's jewelry and came from her room smelling like 4 different perfumes at the same time when I was little. Since my mom died I can't tell you how many times I have pulled out all this pretty ugly jewelry (haha) and sat sifting through it all. Basically it is costume jewelry, some of it is sentimental, and I usually end up pulling out a bracelet to start wearing (confession, today it is 6 bracelets)… I have this thing about bracelets. Oh, and two rings.

 

So yesterday the electrician came in and put the ceiling light fixture in and I am … finally… after a month of owning a used monster size Stickley desk, putting my office together, or should be. I collected the jewelry boxes from the dining room to put them in a box to store for now but there I went looking through the boxes instead of my "moving in" office project. I can't help it.

This time I stood looking down into this jewelry box (something I have done a thousand times if once) and I noticed something I had never noticed before. See it? I will give you a moment. Out of 3 boxes and three gallon size plastic bags of costume jewelry there is one single item that is different. And more importantly, how on earth did I see past it every single time. I seriously never noticed that pair of used tickets. So now I am writing a blog post instead of moving my office from the dining room to the office. I am so glad I can stay on task…. 

 

My mind immediately starts conjuring up all sorts of things about these tickets. Knowing my mother as I do, that pair of tickets meant something incredibly important to her. When she and my birth father split up she burned everything that had anything to do with him. And I seriously mean burned, that woman was a pyromaniac if ever. When I started on my DAR application quest every single document I asked my mother for was gone, destroyed…. Burned. Lol. (I can laugh now.) She left no trace of her life with a man she was married to. Luckily she left some photographs in tact though she did destroy her wedding album. I understand the why of her actions, I have that rage gene too, but I wish she had kept my and my sister's family history intact. So while I derailed my objective of this paragraph, let me get back to the point. That pair of tickets had not a thing to do with my birth father. The tickets are from Ohio and $1.25 so had nothing to do with her period of life with my wonderful step-father.

When my mother died there were two personal items in her bedroom. One was a 1964 letter from a man I think she was in love with and I think he was the love of her life. Or perhaps he was the one she let go and regretted.  It was a letter that was telling her he was going to get married and yet still talked about how he had felt about her.  So it was a love letter in a way and a goodbye letter in another way.  Everyone keeps "that" kind of goodbye letter.  But that it was easily accessible to her speaks the importance of that letter to her and helps me understand her and her life a little bit more.  The second was that pair of tickets tucked away in her jewelry box. Other than that she didn't leave much about her as a person. I mean, we had a house of "stuff" to deal with but not a lot of paper proof that defined her as an individual. We never did stumble upon that box of love letters that everyone hopes to find.   Those tickets were kept for a reason and my intuition is telling me it has everything to do with the man in the letter.  And I can't believe I missed them!  So we have mystery documents and probably no answers but it is fun to imagine; to dream. Were those tickets from the date of her dreams?  Where they their first date?  The last time they saw each other?  I would love to know.