Treasured Pieces

When I was young, I would stare at my mother’s handwriting in search for pieces of who she was.

from Boscoe Holder

I spent long Sunday services flipping through notes on index and birthday cards slid between the thin slippery pages of her Bible.

Around the house I’d find one of her hand written notes and wonder about the workings of her mind based on the writing before me.

In school I’d wait for my S’s to swoop and dance like hers. For my F’s to coyly dip their toes in an invisble water and for my P’s to sit daintily waiting for someone to read them.

I’d think on the notes, letters, or reminders she’d written that I’d never get to read as if they belonged to a lost library of Atlantis.

The swoops of her S’s, the flair of her F’s, and the poise of P’s were to me signs of maturity, symbols of elegance, and denotations of grace.

One day I found a notebook I’d never seen before with entries dated before I was born. I held it carefully in my hands, analyzing every part of it as if it was a piece of glimmering gold. Quickly my eyes darted to the door in thought of the privacy I was breaking. Hurriedly, I skimmed pages and drank up all the…