My mother did not leave me anything. How could she have? 

She was just 25. 

Her death was sudden

She did not amass much by 25.
 

My grandma gave me her wallet. 

The wallet was nothing special. It was a well worn small faux leather wallet. 

Plastic inserts held a few local business cards and a photo of her friend Eva. 

A penny dated 1964 in the change purse. 

 

But tucked inside the pocket

were two torn note papers - a handwritten list.

A shopping list. 
 

As an archeologist, I started to form an image of my mother,

my family and us. 

It held her handwriting, the amount of pressure applied to the pen, the priorities of needs, the organization, the economic use of paper to space.

This was like uncovering a secret.

 

 

 

Indeed, no one else would have remembered how she wrote her grocery lists.

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What foods or items we ate or the brands she preferred.

A tiny loose-leaf paper held the world for me.