Can I hear you now???????

I have so many thoughts whizzing around in my head most days that I feel like I'm on overload. I obviously don't think I am the only one because as I look around while out of the house (they do let me out every once in a while, just thought I'd share that warning) I see lots of crazed people. Most of us are in our own world with errands to run, things to get done and other places to be.

Yep, you guessed it, this is gonna be one of those slow down and smell the roses kinda post. I can't put anything past you can I?

As I was hurrying to get my Celebrate OZ, Altered Oz post up on my other blog Olde Baggs 'n Stuft Shirts, I had to run to the copy center to get Dorothy's dress increased in size. I had thought I had her pegged as a size 8.5" x 11" regular but she turned out to be 2 times, 8.5" x 11" sheets of cardstock. Actually because I am a size conscious girl, she is a 1.5 to be precise.

So anyway as I am rushing in the copy center door to get my girl Dorothy dressed in time, there was this folded paper on the ground near the door. It looked like an old letter to someone. I picked it up thinking that it was trash at first. As I was waiting for a machine, I was being nosey and read what was written on the paper. It was a letter dated November 23, 1972. It was from a daughter to a mother. The gist of the letter was that the daughter was sorry that the mother had chosen not to come to her wedding. She was hurt but understood that her mother was not going to change her mind and the daughter wanted to make sure that her mother knew that she forgave her anyway.

As I read the words, I was swept away into this person's pain because I too had a similar history of anger, hurt associated with my wedding and the date on the letter made it eerily close. I ran away and married Sweet Man on November 24, 1972.

I looked around to see if there was anyone my age in the copy shop. No, all were youngers but there was this young man who seemed to be looking for something in his stack of papers. Being who I am, I asked him if he had dropped the letter. He looked directly in my eyes and said yes, thank you. But how did you know? I said I noticed that he was searching for something. He said, you have no idea.

He dropped out of line and we stood at the back of the store. Then he poured out his heart about the loss of his mother. Who, he commented had looked very much like me. He said she passed away last week and he was trying to get things in order. He said he found the letter in an envelope in a shoe box of cards and stuff his Mom had in her closet. The letter had his grandmothers name and address on it but it had never been sent. The significance of the letter was huge for this young man. Forgiveness never delivered, he called it. He had never known his grandmother, never even known where she lived or what her name was. He was making copies for his sister in Michigan because he knew she also would have interest in a past that they had never known. His mother had divorced his father when he was 5 and his sister was 4. They had not seen or heard from him since. Their whole world had been their Mother as their only family. And he was in shock about this information and what it might mean for him, his sister and their spouses and children.

I asked what he was going to do with it? He said probably nothing but it did make him wonder.

I shared with him that I too found things after my own Mother's death that would forever be mysteries to me because she had kept her secrets from her kids. He admitted that he knew that there must be family members out there but that he would feel odd getting in touch with them after all these years. What would he say? I confessed I didn't have the answer. We just sorta stared at each other. He said he felt that meeting me had given him his answer...if he could talk to a perfect stranger in a copy shop about it, that he could talk to a perfect stranger who may have known his Mom.

Who knows what Michael will do with the information. But I am pondering what I need to do with it. The feelings I have, I mean. I can't fix it for him or his sister, but I can send them healing thoughts and consider them as part of my life experience. I can accept that this happened for a reason and wait on the answer. Or I can think, it is what it is.