X Marks the Spot

I did manage to find three late hydrangea blossoms deep inside the foliage today. I cut them and put them in a vase on the mantle. Two freshly-cut roses, beautifully fragrant, are in a vase near my parents' photo. 

It's been a little bit of a treasure hunt this trip.

Going through some bins with fabric, I finally found my baptismal gown. It's been missing for nearly 30 years. My daughter wore it for her baptism, but when it was time for my son's four years later, Mom said she could not find it. It stymied her because over the summer, before he was born in September, she'd washed and ironed it to get it ready for his baptism. 

She said, "I'm so sorry. I've looked everywhere and I can't find it."

So I ran out to the mall and found a soft, white sleeper with light blue piping, and that's what he wore. I remember feeling disappointed because my grandmother brought the gown back from Europe for my baptism; both my brothers wore it for theirs, and we continued the tradition in the next generation with my daughter's baptism. Turns out, she was the only one of my mother's six grandchildren to wear it. 

About a year after he was baptized, we were visiting my parents and I went down to the basement for something. I stopped to use the bathroom, looked up, and saw the gown hanging from a pipe. It was in a clear plastic covering but was clearly discernable. I walked upstairs with it and Mom said, "Oh my gosh, where did you find it?" We both had a good laugh, but it still stung.

Last year, when Mom started talking about putting the house up for sale and moving I began to ask about the baptismal gown. It was no longer hanging from the pipe in the basement. Again, Mom had no idea where it was.

"It's around here somewhere. I'm sure we'll find it," she said.

Well, if you've ever been in a house that's held several generations in a family that likes to hold onto nearly everything, you might not be surprised at my concern over never finding it. I've been looking for it for a few months. I won't say I'd given up, but I was starting to reconcile myself to the possibility that she'd loaned it or given it away or accidentally thrown it away. That it might not be found and saved for my own hoped-for-grandchildren's baptisms.

This evening I was in the basement, going through some bins with fabrics that included some embroidered curtains I want to keep, and there it was. No longer neatly ironed. It needs a bit of a wash and probably some Oxy-Clean to brighten it up a bit, but beautiful still. It was like unearthing treasure.

Creating Space: Three Months of Showing Up for What's Showing Up is a daily writing practice. Turns out that a lot of this writing explores the landscape of grief. My mother died shortly before I began this writing, and this is what I'm thinking about most of the time these days.

Katherine Cartwright has been blogging since 2012, and each year brings new wonders. She asks big questions of the small things in life.