that she had baked for the customers. He thought, “There are dozens of businesses that could take lessons from that girl on customer service.”
Amanda cheerfully greeted him, “Hey, Good morning Billy, what brings you in today? Did you walk all the way down here again to pay the rent? I told you that you should just mail it in and save yourself the walk. Not that I don’t enjoy your company, but I feel bad that you walk all the way here.”
Billy replied, “No Amanda today I’m here to spend some time going through some of my mother’s belongings so I can decide what I need to hold onto and what I should dump. I sorted most of the items out when I put the house on the market but it sold much quicker than I anticipated and I wanted to have time to give the place a good cleaning before the new owners moved in so the rest of the stuff I just put in boxes and moved into storage. I’m sure a lot of it is of no use to me or anyone else I just need the time to sort through it. Would you by any chance have any garbage bags I could purchase from you, I completely forgot to bring mine?”
Amanda reached under the counter and said, “Here you go, it’s on the house.”
Billy thanked her and headed out to his locker area.
Amanda yelled after him, “A couple of guys are working to clean out some of the vacant bins. If you need help moving anything don’t be afraid to ask, that’s what we’re here for.”
He replied, “Thank you, honey, I’m sure I’ll be fine, but I appreciate the offer.” He did appreciate the offer, not too many people went out of their way to help one another anymore, and when they did, he made a mental note of it.
Billy was standing in front of the storage locker that contained all that remained of his mother's belongings. He had to take a deep breath before unlocking the padlock on the bin. He had been so busy lately between closing up the shop, working on his project and client accounts and the time he had been spending with Sherry that he hadn’t been to the locker in months. He knew it wasn’t going to be an easy day and he was thankful that he had a chance to spend a little stress-free time with little Joey and his mother. It was also a treat to see Gus again; it felt nice to spend time with someone with whom he had shared memories of his dad.
Now it was time to get back to reality. He opened the padlock and slid the big overhead door up out of the way. He stood there and let out a deep sigh. The locker contained quite a few items, but he knew most of them were useless. However, it was still painful to dispose of his mother's belongings. There were some pieces of furniture that he didn’t need or in fact even have room for in his place, but he hated just to give them away. He knew the furniture, however, would be the easy part. There were several dozen boxes that he had never had the chance to sort through back when he was selling the house. He had no idea what he would find in them or what feelings they would provoke in him.
He decided rather than turn this into a huge mess he would try to organize the process as much as possible. He cleared one corner of the locker and set out a small coffee table and one of the chairs. He stacked a few boxes neatly on top of each other and began going through them one at a time. He was rather surprised that the entire process was going faster than he had imagined it would. There was one box of old photos and he allowed himself some time to look through them. There were pictures of him as a child with his mother and father that whisked him back to simpler times. Although his childhood was far from a walk in the park, he dearly missed those days with his parents. Even the memories of his dad being rather cold and distant at times had softened, and as an adult now he understood some of the pressure his dad must have been experiencing.
One thing was for certain; there was never any doubt that his mother and father were deeply in love. He knew if he continued reminiscing about every old photograph he would never get this place cleaned out. He decided he would simply pack all of the photos in one box and sort them out at home. He had purchased a few photo albums awhile back with that very intention and then somehow the task kept getting moved further down on the priority list. With all the pictures packed neatly in a box, he moved on to the next items.
Some boxes overflowed with linens and old napkins for which he had no use. They were in excellent condition because his mother had stored them all individually in plastic wrap. He couldn’t help but laugh when he thought of how many linens he still had in boxes and how many he had already donated when he cleaned the house. Shaking his head, he thought we could have made every bed in town and still had linens left over. His mother may not have had a lot of money but she only bought quality items, and she took impeccable care of things. He started a box of items that could be donated and placed the linens and table covers in to start the collection.
He made his way through a dozen or more boxes, and the majority of them had been earmarked for donation. He found some old toys and children’s books and set those aside to see if Joey would possibly enjoy them. He also set aside a few of the household items for Joey’s mother hoping that Genie wouldn’t take offense to him offering these things to her. The last thing he wanted to do was offend anyone by implying that they needed his hand me downs but he had a sneaking suspicion that they had very little and he saw no point in giving the things to strangers if someone in his own backyard could utilize them.
There were a few decorative pieces that he piled in the corner of the locker with the intention of asking Amanda if she had any use for them. If she didn’t want them, then he would donate them to one of the church sales. He was finally down to the last box that needed sorting. He had several neat piles of things he would give away, throw away or bring home. The task was much less overwhelming than he had anticipated.
He placed the last box on the coffee table and began
rifling through it. The majority of the contents were old bills, letters, and junk mail all of which he had no use for and quickly he was emptying it one item at a time into the trash bags. Near the bottom of the box was an old journal that he had never seen before. It had dried flowers embossed on the cover with gold edging on the pages. There was a pretty pink ribbon that acted as a bookmark.
He began to flip through the pages and was several pages in before he realized he was reading his mothers journal. When it dawned on him what it was, he stopped reading for a moment. He felt rather guilty reading her thoughts; he assumed she had never intended for anyone to read it. This was a place where she expressed her fears and dreams, her disappointments and accomplishments. Did he dare to read it? Did he have a right to read it? He even wondered if perhaps his mother hoped that one day he would find it. With gnawing guilt, he read on.
Some pages contained the typical entries one would find in a young woman’s diary. Page after page of fantasy plans for a life filled with big houses and endless money. She wrote of her first love and how she dreamed of spending her life with him. Billy stopped to wonder if she regretted not spending her life with this young man or was she thankful that her prayer went unanswered. She often told Billy that she believed some of God’s greatest gifts were un-answered prayers and he wondered if this was the prayer upon which she based that philosophy.
She wrote of her love for dancing and built a fantasy right there on these pages. She spoke of classical music and how whenever she listened to it she couldn’t help but picture herself as a ballerina on a large New York stage. She wrote in great detail about what costume she would be wearing and the beautiful roses she would surely receive after she completed her performance. Her obvious gift of writing left him mentally hovering over her performance.
I know this is what I was put here to do. I can feel the music in my soul, and it takes over every fiber of who I am. When the first note breaks the silence of the theater, it changes something in me, and I am no longer Marguerite, the little farm girl from Iowa. I am a ballerina on a famous New York stage. My dress will be the color of a Colorado sunset with touches of mauve and blue. It will be calf length and will flow with my body as if it were a shadow that was trying to keep up with me. I will wea
r my hair up with a beautiful crystal hair piece that will catch
the lighting and take on a dance of its own.
The theater will go from complete darkness to a gentle spotlight in the center of the stage where I will appear. The audience will go silent as if their ability to breath is withheld until I make my first move. As I begin to sway and move the audience will disappear, and I will be left alone on the stage, my stage. I will be the only thing that exists, just me and my music. I will move through the air as though we were one and each note will lift me higher, and as the tunes pound out faster and faster, I will spin with the ease of an autumn wind.
When I finish I will gently fold my arms around my body, and I will effortlessly descend to the floor, and the lights will again fade to total darkness. There will be a brief moment of complete silence as the audience transitions back from the fantasy trip they have taken with me.
Then there will be an explosion of applause, and the lights will slowly consume the stage where just moments earlier I owned the world. A crew member will carry a beautiful bouquet of roses to me as the audience throws individual flowers onto the stage floor. The bouquet will be magnificent, and the scent of roses will fill the air.
Billy found himself glued to the words which one by
one built a detailed picture of the woman he would come to know as his mom. Through her writing, he could feel her love for dance and the passion in her words created a scent of roses that drifted through him. Each page gave him greater insight into how she thought, what she felt and who she was as a person and a woman. He had never taken the time to consider who she was before she was his father’s wife or his mother. She appeared to be so comfortable in her role as wife and mom, the thought that she ever wanted to be anything other than that both intrigued him and bothered him at the same time. It intrigued him because there was an entirely different side to his mother that he had somehow managed to stay oblivious too. It bothered him for two reasons: one because she never shared these feelings with him and two because he wondered if she spent her life filled with regrets for dreams unattained.
As he read further, he noticed that after a section about meeting a man named Bill and how much she liked him there was a huge gap in time before any other entries appeared in her journal. Again his mind went spinning with questions that due to her passing would never be answered with any certainty. Billy sat and wondered if she had stopped writing because she was so happy that she no longer had to live vicariously through her diary or had she stopped writing because she simply gave up on her dreams.
He had to stop himself mid-thought because he was starting to feel so guilty that he somehow had ruined his mother’s life, or at least the life she once dreamed of living. He knew without a shadow of a doubt that his mother loved him with all of her heart. He drew the comparison between his childhood dream to sit in a big office and run a major company and the reality that had become his life. He ended up running his own little business right here in his hometown. “Yes,” he thought, “my life is different than I imagined it when I was younger, and it’s even different then I thought it would be when I graduated college. I came home to care for my mother and left the corporate dream behind. Do I regret that? After a brief moment he shook his head and thought, “Absolutely not, I’d have given up anything for my mother without regret or resentment.” At that instant, he had a moment of clarity. “I’d be willing to bet that this is how his mother felt. Her life was different than she imagined but if given a chance to do it all again I bet she would make the same choices.” He found a little relief in that thought. With that clarity, he continued to move forward through her diary. The next date that she sat to pen her thoughts was November 6, 1963, his birthday.
He is so beautiful, absolutely beautiful. I can’t even begin to explain the love I feel for him already. Bill looks so proud and is running around showing everyone pictures of him and handing out cigars with little blue “It’s a boy” bands on them. I’ve never seen him this excited before. I love Bill with all my heart, and I didn’t think it was possible to love anything any more than I love him. But now as I look at little Billy I feel love like none I’ve ever felt before. I can’t wait to take him home and sit and hold him forever. Bill decorated the nursery for him with little trains and trucks; it’s so cute. It’s only been a few hours, and already I can’t imagine my life without him. This is what I was put here for; it’s all clear now.
Billy knew that the conclusion he had come to earlier, that if given a chance she would do it all again was right. The pages that followed had gaps that ranged from months to years. Apparently, she would occasionally sit down and try to play catch up by filling in the time periods between writing. She mentioned how excited Billy was about the school project he had done and how angry she was with the other children in school for destroying it. One of her entries was about how much her heart broke to know that Billy didn’t seem to fit in with the other children. She felt that it wasn’t his fault; it was because he was so smart and the other kids were jealous. She wrote about how she felt when Bill took ill and passed away.
Today my heart broke. God took the only man I ever really loved. I don’t know how I’ll go on without him. And what about Billy, how will I ever raise him alone. A boy needs his father. Bill was my best friend, and I’m so lost without him. Why would you do this to me?
Her last sentence in that entry was obviously directed towards God. She was angry at him and didn’t understand why he would hurt her like that. Looking back now, Billy could pinpoint the period where they started going to church less often. Billy hadn’t made the mental connection back then, but now it all seemed so clear. She never really forgave God for taking his dad away. Billy understood that this was not a punishment directed towards her and he knew that in her heart she knew that as well. She was scared and angry and needed to direct that pain at something, and she chose God.
He had always remembered his mom as a very spiritual woman. She wasn’t a fanatic, but she had a strong faith. She lived a clean, honest life. She always tried to help others and put their needs before her own. He could understand why she would be angry. She spent her life trying to live by the teachings of the church, and it must have seemed so unfair that the church that she served would allow her to hurt like this. Billy was able to keep this in perspective because he knew this entry had been written at a time when she was deep in grief. The entries in her diary didn’t resume again until well after Billy had graduated college and returned home to care for her.
I feel so horrible about being a burden on Billy. He is giving up a career, and whatever hopes he had at a normal life. He shouldn’t have to do this, but I don’t know what else to do. I am willing to go into assisted living, but Billy says he won’t let me do that. He’s such a great son, and I am blessed to have him in my life. He has given up so much in his life. When he was little, he had to give up most of his childhood because he never really made friends easily. He had to grow up too fast. Then he had to give up his father, and I know that hurt him deeply. He never complained, but I think that had more to do with not
wanting to hurt me.
Now he has to give up so much just to take care of me. I hope the one thing he never gives up is his gift of being able to move through situations without allowing them to change him. So many people become bitter and angry because of the things they go through but not my Billy. He just shakes it off and keeps moving forward; I’m so proud of him.
That was Marguerite's final entry in her journal, and she simply dated it 2013. He couldn’t believe five years had passed since he left New York to care for her.
Billy sat there with the diary on his lap, rereading her last words and a tear fell onto the page. “I’m so proud of you too mama,” he whispered. He thought about what she wrote and felt bad that he had not lived up to her expectations. He had allowed the world to change him and the Tony’s of the world to beat him; he let them change who he was as a person and a man. His childhood feeli
ng of being ignored and dismissed had grown along with him. With each new device or program that played a hand in alienating people his hatred deepened. He knew it wasn’t too late to change his perspective on life. Billy made the decision right at that moment while sitting on an old chair in a storage locker that he was going to change the way he looked at the world.
He would make his mother proud of him by doing the simplest thing, just staying who he was. Billy took a moment to compose himself and got up to finish the task at hand. He placed the journal in the box that contained all the old photographs. He decided that these were the only two boxes he would take home with him. He walked up to the office area and asked Amanda if she would come over to the locker for a minute. She grabbed her sweater and cordless phone and followed Billy back to his locker.
When they arrived at the open bay door, Billy began pointing to some items and told her, “These aren’t great things but if you have an interest in any of them you are welcome to take them.”
Amanda’s eyes widened and she said in a rather questioning voice, “Really, why would you give this all to me?”
The tone of her voice surprised Billy; it was as if no one had ever done anything nice for her. “Well to be honest,” he explained “you are one of the few people I have dealt with in business that treated me like a person and not just a customer. You don’t see that too often, and I just
wanted to do something nice for you.”
“Wow Billy, this is great. I just moved into a small apartment with my two sons and to be honest we don’t really have that much furniture.”
Billy interrupted her, “I never knew you had children.”
“Yes, I have two sons Jason and Jared. Billy this is great, I don’t know what to say but thank you so much. Things have been really tough since I moved with the boys and furniture and things like that have just been last on my list of priorities. I have been focusing on the bills, and it seems like this place has been cutting my hours every week.”
Memories Are An Old Man's Toys Page 12