A few weeks ago, I went down to Florida to see my dad in his new home and also to clean out his storage facility. Most of his furniture we donated to a rehabilitation center. But there were boxes and boxes of old photos and things. Since I wasn’t there, I told my brother to put them in storage until I could get there.
Drive from Orlando to Boca Raton
After driving down from Orlando to Boca, I met my brother at the public storage facility not far from his home. There were so many boxes. I didn’t think we would get through them all.
The first day, I spent about an hour or so opening boxes and throwing out a lot of stuff. The second day, I was alone and had time to really go through things.
My mother was an organizer
My mother was great at putting together photo books. She designed so many photo albums with lots of graphics and such. They were beautifully done. It must have taken her hours to do them. (She made me three books with all the articles that had been written about me, all the brochures from HJMT, and more.)
But, among all the photo albums and the clothes, I found two wooden boxes. They looked old. I asked my brother if he wanted them and he said, “no, I have enough in my house.” So, I shoved them in a box and brought them home.
The Wooden Cigar Boxes
Since I’ve been home, it’s been a whirlwind, but I decided one evening to go through the cigar boxes and see what was inside.
I found my grandparents wedding announcement, cards from my grandfather to my grandmother, and I even found my grandmother’s high school autograph book from 1924.
There was a letter from my sister, Lori, to my grandparents about a trip we went on to Salem, MA. There were letters from my uncle George to my grandparents, which I immediately photographed and sent to him.
Then, there were a slew of letters from my mother to her parents and to her brother when she was in the hospital in the 1940s. My mother had polio.
Reflections from my past
I started to think about how sad my grandparents must have felt leaving their child in the hospital, only able to visit once a week. My mother was so strong. She always was so strong. She made the best of a bad situation, talking about the doctors and how friendly they were to her. She also talked about the other children on the ward. She talked about her breathing and how her legs didn’t work. She couldn’t even sit up, she was completely paralyzed. I started to cry.
I know it was a long time ago, but just thinking about my poor mother lying there with in an iron lung made me feel so sad.
Thinking about my maternal grandparents
There was a letter I sent to my grandfather. I must have been a teenager. I didn’t noticed if it were before or after my grandmother died. She was only 66 when she passed away. I was very close with my grandparents. But the letter I found was to my grandfather. We called him Papa Mac. As I read the letter, I realized how much I still miss him after all these years, how much I miss them both.
I was 16 when my grandmother passed away and that was so hard for my entire family. It took my mother the rest of her life to get over the pain of losing her mother.
My grandmother died because the doctor kept her on prednisone. She took it every day. Then one day, the doctor told her to stop taking the medication. Instead of weaning her off it, he stopped cold turkey and her body went into shock. She ended up in the hospital at Long Beach Memorial. Unfortunately, she had delusions and hallucinations as a result. Although it was difficult for me to see her like that, I went almost every day to see her.
My grandfather lived for several years after that. He got very sick before my sister’s wedding to her first husband. He was in the hospital but he insisted that Lori get married. After the wedding and once she was on the plane to Hawaii for her honeymoon, he passed. We didn’t tell Lori about it because we didn’t want to ruin her honeymoon.
I wanted to know more
It’s amazing how these two wooden cigar boxes brought up so many memories for me. I wished they told me more about my heritage. But, they didn’t. I wanted to find out more about my grandfather’s paintbrush business. After finding photos of him with this huge staff of people who worked for him, I wondered what happened.
He went from having money to struggling to make money. I wanted to see if I could figure out why that happened. The last part of his life, he drove a taxi cab in Long Beach. He was certainly the mayor of Long Beach. He knew everyone and everyone knew him.
Although the box didn’t give me the insight I wanted, what it did do was remind me of my deep love for my grandparents. They were truly special people.
