Hey, everyone. I’ve been turning this over in my mind for days, unsure if I should share it at all, but I feel like I need to put it somewhere, and maybe someone out there will understand. I guess I just need to get this off my chest.
It started with an old notebook I found while cleaning out my dad’s attic last month. I was sifting through boxes that hadn’t been touched in years, most of them layered in thick dust, a testament to their neglect. Among old photo albums, tax records, and forgotten knick-knacks, I stumbled upon a notebook that looked oddly familiar — one of those composition books with a marbled cover and the edges fraying.
The moment I picked it up, I felt a strange pull, a familiarity that drew me in like an old song. I flipped through the pages, and the words struck me like echoes from a forgotten past. It was my mother’s handwriting, beautiful and looping, flowing across the pages like a song. Poetry, mostly, and some diary entries, dated back to the year I was born.
Mom passed away when I was only ten, and my memories of her are like half-formed dreams: glimpses of laughter, the sound of her voice humming softly during lullabies, the touch of her hand brushing through my hair. Those memories have always felt like delicate threads I was afraid to pull too hard at, lest they unravel completely.
As I read, I realized she wrote about things I never knew. Her fears, her struggles with depression, her joys, and the deep love she held for me and Dad. But there was one entry, a letter really, that stilled my heart.
“To my dearest Charlie,
If you’re reading this, maybe you’ve found this notebook hidden away in some dusty attic corner. I hope you remember me, and I hope you know how deeply you were loved. Sometimes I felt like I was swimming in a sea of darkness, always trying to reach the light. I’m sorry for the times I was distant. You were my beacon. Never forget that.
Love, always and forever, Mom.”
I sat there on the attic floor, light filtering through a small window, dust motes dancing in a golden haze, and I cried. I cried for the woman I hardly knew, for the mother I missed every day, and for the little boy who didn’t understand why she had to leave.
Holding that notebook, I realized that for years, I had been carrying a wound I didn’t fully comprehend. I thought I understood loss, but it was more than that. I had been angry, too, in a way. Angry at her, angry at fate. But reading her words, feeling her presence through the pen strokes, that anger melted into something softer.
I understood, perhaps for the first time, that she hadn’t left because she didn’t love us, but because she was a person facing her own storms. We were her light; I was her light.
I showed Dad the notebook. We sat together at the kitchen table, the afternoon sun casting long shadows across our cups of coffee. At first, he looked at it like it was a fragile relic, as if touching it might shatter something. Then, he opened it and began to read.
“She always had a gift for words,” he murmured after a while, his voice thick with emotion. “I’m glad you found this.”
We talked, really talked, for the first time in years. About her, about us, about how we had each tried to navigate life in her absence. It was like a dam had broken, and the flood of words washed away years of silence and misunderstanding.
Finding that notebook didn’t just bring me closer to my mother — it brought me closer to my dad, too, and to myself. It allowed me to forgive, to understand, and to let go of a burden I didn’t know I was carrying.
I guess what I’m trying to say is, sometimes the things we lose — the people we lose — linger in ways we don’t expect. It might be a note, a song, a scent, or a notebook that looks like nothing special. But if you listen closely, they’re whispering their truth back to us, showing us the way forward.
Thanks for reading, everyone. If you have something like this in your life, something unresolved, maybe take a moment to listen. You never know what you might hear.
Love,
Charlie