January 12th, 2012 - 5:02 pm
» hope
For her wedding, my mom got a cedar hope chest. It’s lived at the base of her bed for as long as I can remember, and recently she replaced the threadbare upholstered top with new fabric. Last night, after admiring that facelift, we cracked open the chest and dug through it. It’s filled with random mementos: newspapers from the days my sister and I were born, my mom’s wedding veil, a cookbook I made for her in first grade, a handful of pocket watches, a few old yearbooks, her mother’s jewelry box, stacks of cards. The thing that caught me most was the card my grandmother gave my mom on her wedding day. The cover is a pair of hands holding a bouquet of red roses; soft-focus, late-70′s. Inside, my grandma’s slanting writing more upright than I knew it, clearer: “May life be wonderful to you.”
What a lovely wish, that. May life be wonderful to you.