Things left behind, after his mother’s death, translated…
My foreign friend’s landlord took back the property that was rented out to him, and he was leaving Taiwan in a couple more months, so, I’d given the third floor of my home to him to stay in for short-term; but because the third floor had been vacant so long, he’d needed to clean up the loft himself. My friend started shipping his luggage, his furniture over, including a king-sized bed, so, I’d asked him, to help me rid of the thirty-year-old spring mattress, the bed frames, as large trash.
After my friend got settled in, one day, he’d run downstairs and asked me, “Are you staying home tonight? I have a present for you!”, then, he’d told me, “Happy Birthday!” then went upstairs. After age thirty, I’d basically, stopped celebrating my birthdays, especially after my parents had passed away, birthdays had, lost their meanings to me. That very evening, my friend’s wife and daughter who were both staying elsewhere came too, a bottle of champagne on the tables, they’d sung “Happy Birthday” to me.
“Time for presents!”, my friend left the dining room mysteriously, and not long thereafter, he’d come back downstairs with a dirty grocery bag. I was suspicious, and pulled out its contents, it was a stack of old documents, and a diary.
My friend explained, that that day he’d lifted the spring mattress up, these few items fell out of the supposedly emptied drawers. Back then, he’d placed it in some corner, and was going to sort through them after he’d done cleaning up the room. As I took it from him, my originally in-place excitement, went away, it was the disposed documents from my former eldest brother-in-law’s work; and, maybe, there’s something worth keeping from my eldest sister’s diaries, but, there was only that one page that’s filled up, out of the entire book.
“Wait!”, my French friend with that surprise on his face said, immediately, he’d pulled out a velvet red rectangle box. Opening it, I became, dumbfounded. There were, a couple of rings, necklaces, bracelets, along with other valuables. I’d opened up my eyes wide, and, shifted my gaze to my French friend, then he’d started telling me what had happened these past couple of days on the third floor.
his mother’s love for him, kept, inside a jewlery box, not my photo…
A few days ago, there was this jewelry box that fell out of the bed, with the documents, along with the diary too, but, the jewelry box wasn’t eye-catching enough, so very shortly, it got, casted away by my friend, and tossed onto that pile. On the early morning between September 3rd, he’d started lighting a candle in the room, placed the three candles, in three glasses, it was his habits for a long time. But, as the candles just got lit up, one of the cups exploded, and the shards flew across my friends sole, but gladly, he wasn’t, seriously injured, but the shards went straight into that red velvet jewelry box at the corner. Being suspicious and sensitive as he, he’d felt, that it was odd, the accident had, occurred, and so, he’d, opened up the jewelry box………
Seeing that stack of old-style, heavy gold jewelries, I couldn’t understand it. Before my mother died, she couldn’t tell us about the savings, and other information regarding her accounts, my two older sister and I rummaged through the house, found an assortments of things, the deeds to the house, the bank books, along with all of my mother’s jewelries, so, her bed was already, examined, unless, those items were, shoved into behind the drawers intentionally.
I’d immediately called up my older sisters, told them what I’d found, and hoped, that if these were my mother’s, they could take them home, and keep them. In the call, my eldest sister, who was originally shocked, got something, “Ahhhhhh, younger brother, that was saved by mom, for your marriage! Mom was always like that, kept saving things up for us, you should just, keep them with you!”
After I hung up, I’d started crying, it was the saddest I’d ever cried since mom died, and yet, there was, that burst of joy from my sorrows too. My mother, used this very creative way, through my French friend, gave me this, very special forty-first birthday present for me, who was born at the hours of midnight between September 2nd and 3rd.
So, this, is an heirloom, I suppose, that your mother had left for you, and, the timing of you finding the stashed away jewelries, was just right, before your birthday, and that, was your mother’s way of showing that she loves you, even though she’d already, died.
Life, the Obstacle Course 