Mom was a hoarder. She is gone, but the evidence of her psychosis was lumped up around the one-bedroom apartment she had shared with my special-needs brother.
THE CIPHER
How could I know the CIPHER would still be here?
Mom was a hoarder. She is gone, but the evidence of her psychosis was lumped up around the one-bedroom apartment she had shared with my special-needs brother. It was like an over-stuffed garage from hell. I’m talking stacks of TV Guides ten yers old, piles of ketchup packets from McDonald’s, Burger King and even bankrupted Bob’s Big Boy- the residue of her life and the tokens of the world outside her self-made dungeon nest.
How could I know the CIPHER would still be here?
The family had already raided the place and taken anything of value, jewelry, electronics, kitchen appliances and such. My self-appointed task was to divide the clutter into Salvation Army-worthy donations and discard the rest.
Even with every window open, the musty smell of death hung in the air. A canopy of dust motes danced around to the tune of the breeze. Maybe this was Mom greeting me. Her dry skin sloughed off as she wasted away behind the orange door animated by my return. I had rarely been allowed to pass the door these past thirty years. Now I felt like a lifetime of visits were settling on me from the air — hugs, and kisses I had never been given as a child. I was performing my obligations as a dutiful son. Still, I can’t deny I hoped to find hints of a happier earlier life in the piles stacked like African ant hills around the small apartment. Some tokens I could take back to my own children to remember their Nana. I collected a few photos, a copper baby shoe and a century-old engraved jewelry box with only costume pieces left.
Of course, there were books.
Mom’s taste had always been questionable — there’s a reason Bob’s Big Boy went out of business. At least half of the small apartment was lined with IKEA bookshelves. Every wall had at least two. She was never a library person, so matter how tight the budget. While a voracious reader, she preferred Harlequin romances to denser reading. Those I boxed up for Salvation Army — thousands of them. I almost missed the CIPHER in my hustle.
When you discover the key to your life, time itself stops to honor the reunion. I realized how blood could sing, the body generate its own electrical field. I had seen the binding first, that tacky gold spine evidencing a children’s book of ‘quality.’ It was merely the slightest twinge of curiosity at finding a children’s book amidst her pulp-fiction that had me pull it out. THERE IT WAS.
It took my eyes and mind a few seconds to catch up with my breath as it whooshed out of my body, in JOY. This was no simple book — it was the CIPHER to my life.
I could have easily stay locked in the family orbit but for this KEY. Books are not simply piles of words to play with on a rainy day When you open a book, as with a door, you go inside. Inside you practice. You learn to overcome adversity, survive loss, and become complete. Your find tools powerful enough to understand the shape of how it is and to plan for how it can be.
I held in my hands the CIPHER to my success. Reading allowed me to consume ideas and make of them my own dreams. It opened worlds to me. This KEY allowed me to convert ideas into actions and so create my own path to freedom. I had an education, family, career — all made possible through the use of this CIPHER.
I held “LITTLE BLACK GOES TO THE CIRCUS” as if it were a holy relic, the very key to my salvation. Memories of laying my head on mom’s lap as she read to me — my books. A safe and loving time in an unsafe and challenging world. We shared these moments as only mother and child can — complete trust, safety, and communion.
THANK YOU, MOM.
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