hidden treasures

I just love my grandma. Nanie is a tiny 82-year-old Swedish gal with a fiery spunk and a kind heart. Not long ago, we were talking on the phone (she lives 650 miles away) and she was telling me about how difficult it was to go through all of my grandpa’s things after he died. “But,” she announced, “I have discovered some interesting things.”

“Oh really?” I asked. “Do tell.”

“I discovered he has a stash.”

“A stash?” I was afraid of what she might say next. You see, my grandpa, or Papa, as we fondly referred to him, was a “collector.”

“Yep. As I was going through his things, I found several places of wadded up dollar bills he had been saving,” said Nanie. “He was always making sure I would be taken care of after he was gone.”

I choked up a bit at her statement. You see, my grandparents have never had much money. For Nanie to have found a few wadded up dollar bills placed strategically among Papa’s belongings had been a real treasure.

I even found a note from your aunt and uncle that said ‘Take Nanie out for dinner sometime,’ with a $20 bill,” Nanie continued.

I wondered if Papa was saving that special $20 bill for just the right time to take his sweet bride of over 50 years to lunch at the local diner. Money was hard to come by for my grandparents. Papa had been a vet in several wars and had been disabled and nearly been killed by a drunk driver while working as a police officer in

California.

In total, Nanie’s found treasure didn’t amount to much (not even enough for Nanie to fill her car up with gas), but the fact that her husband, whom she had devoted her life to, had saved up for a rainy day in between the folds of his work pants and winter coats, meant a lot to her.

Sometimes it’s the small things that we do for others, or that they do for us, that mean so much. It’s not the big glamorous things that remind us of one’s love for us.

Awhile ago when I was sick with the flu, my youngest daughter made me a princess crown out of orange construction paper. She had cut out a pink heart and taped it with an entire roll of Scotch tape to the front and had written the words “I love you Mom” on the side. Then she made a matching green bracelet out of construction paper to go with it.

Could my heart be any more touched by her love and thoughtfulness?

It’s the few dollars a late husband leaves lovingly stashed to make sure his bride is cared for after his death; it’s the homemade princess crown and matching bracelet from a little girl to her mom; it’s the prayer someone prays for someone in need at just the right time that means so much.

These things are truly hidden treasures.