Dear Little Daughter (Part 6)
If you missed Part Five, click HERE.
“July 7, 2012. Dear Denise, I know who you are and have been curious for a long time to know more about this box you describe. Millie Ladner told me about you. We corresponded about all of this for a long time, but after a while, I did not hear from her anymore. Please let us know when you will be here in California. Elizabeth and I would love to meet you and see what is inside the box. My best to you. ~ Patty”
I had finally found Patty. I knew where she was. And I knew that however the box came to be at the Tulsa Flea Market so many years before, it hadn’t been intentionally discarded; it had been lost—much like I was when Kendra first told me about it, and much as I was again in this moment.
The seemingly endless wave of grief that had followed Michael and me for so many years had taken its toll. And while Michael remained steadfast and strong, I was spent. So much so that after some 31 years of marriage, impetuously one afternoon, I decided I was done.
Thankfully, while I left our marriage for a time, Michael never did. He was with me then, and not long after I received Patty’s email, he was with me in spirit as I set out on the next leg of the journey.
It was early, the moon’s nightly glow less and less visible against the soft colors of the waking day.
I was heading west in my little S-2000, and with me was precious cargo—the box. It was going full circle. Back to the people whose stories it told, to the place where so many had been written: California.
I was apprehensive, wishing Kendra could have been with me.
As I drove, I thought about all the people I had come to know—some long dead before I met them, others still living. People who, except for the box, I would never have met. Experiences that, except for the box, I would never have had. And paths that, except for the box, I would never have taken.
Two and a half days later, I was finally face to face with Patty and her cousins, Elizabeth (named after her Aunt, the “Dear Little Daughter”) and Carlotta.
It had taken me 17 years to get here. And if a picture is worth a thousand words, then this photo speaks volumes.
It all culminated here, in this moment: Patty—the same age her mother was when she died—reading her mother’s letters for the first time, seeing her handwriting for the first time in decades—letters written by the “Dear Little Daughter” to her own parents, her Aunt Bess, and her brother, Bobby. They began in the early 1940s, just after her marriage, continued while her husband, Jim, was in medical residency, and carried on through the growing years of her three children.
It was like traveling through time, watching years fall away.
Elizabeth and Carlotta explored photos of their parents and relatives and ancestors they never knew, even asking me questions about some of them and exclaiming that I knew more about their family history than they did.
Together, they all laughed and shared their own stories as they recalled moments from long ago days while I soaked it all in.
The love was tangible, the moment magical. And it was in those few moments that I think I, too, began to find my way home. As I watched them remember and connect with family, present and past, I did the same.
Seventeen years in the making, my visit ended little more than an hour and a half after I arrived, but the lessons brought forth by the “Dear Little Daughter Letter” and the box remain.
Soon, I was home, and a new journey began—one that, gratefully, took me full circle back to what always mattered most: Michael, my family, and our own box.
Indeed, treasure comes in many forms. The “Dear Little Daughter Letter” and the box will forever be among my favorite finds.
