The Message in the Musings
Each card had a little handwritten note from her, a small message that I had always thought was just her “rambling grandma-isms.” They were cryptic, poetic sayings, like: “Not every door is locked just because it creaks,” and “You’ll never find truth where everyone agrees.” I used to think she was just being weirdly philosophical. But now, seeing them all together, I understood I was looking at something much deeper.
The real secret was hidden on the back of each card. She had used a different color of ink to underline certain letters—just one letter here, maybe two there—within her handwritten message. The shaking started in my hands as I spread all 17 postcards out on the kitchen table. It was a painstaking process, but I started carefully jotting down the underlined letters in the order they appeared on the cards.
“LOOK IN THE CEDAR HOPE CHEST. BOTTOM.”
Finding the False Bottom
The cedar hope chest had been in her bedroom for my entire life. I had always imagined it was just full of old moth-eaten blankets and linens—the kind of things you put away and forget about. When she passed, I was a young, busy, college-bound “know-it-all,” and the chest hadn’t crossed my mind.
But now, here I was—a 37-year-old divorced single mom—standing in a dusty guest room, my heart racing as if I had suddenly found a treasure map. I knelt down by the chest, lifted the heavy lid, and was instantly greeted by the comforting scent of old wood and lavender sachets. I carefully pulled out the items inside: some hand-crocheted doilies, two embroidered pillowcases, and an old, faded quilt. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
But then, my eyes caught it: a tiny seam where the wood was slightly discolored. There was a false bottom.
It took me a few attempts to figure out how to gently pry it up without damaging the wood. Underneath the false layer, I found a worn, faded red folder holding a thick stack of papers. On the very top of the stack, there was a simple yellow sticky note in her familiar, unmistakable handwriting:
“Read these when you’re ready to know who I really was.”
The Confession in the Folder
I sank down onto the floor, cross-legged, with the mysterious folder in my lap. The first item was a small, black-and-white photograph. It showed my grandmother, much younger, probably in her twenties, standing in front of what looked like a train station. But she wasn’t alone. Standing right next to her was a man I had never, ever seen before. His arm was around her shoulder.
And a huge shock: she was pregnant.
I moved on to the next page. It was a letter, dated all the way back to 1962:
My dearest Zahra, If you are reading this, it means our daughter is safe. It means you found a way out. I’m sorry I couldn’t go with you. I hope she has your courage, your eyes. Tell her I loved her, even from afar. Always, A.
The word “Daughter?” echoed in my mind. My father was an only child. He didn’t have a sister.
But as I kept reading through the papers in the folder, an overwhelming, new truth began to form inside me. It felt like a slow and massive storm building up in my chest. I wasn’t reading about some distant cousin or a long-lost family member.
I was reading about me.
The woman I knew as Grandma Zahra hadn’t been my biological grandmother.
She had been my mother.
