2026, Family, Fantasy, Mysteries

The Box

35 Comments

Prologue.  Before YA and I went to St. Louis for my mom’s service and to clean out her condo, my middle sister mentioned that we should keep an eye out for Nonny’s wedding ring. She had stopped wearing it a few years back (due to her arthritis) and apparently it was now missing.  When we arrived and stopped at my sister’s house, she talked about it again.  Over the course of the next 24 hours, it was clear that she has also told everyone else in the family about the ring being missing. 

Everybody looked all over the “normal” places and one of the funnier parts of the week was all of us, one by one, discovering the plastic bag in the closet labeled “Wedding Ring”.  Unfortunately we all had our hopes dashed one at a time as it was discovered over and over again that it was an old quilt in the wedding ring pattern.  Shoot.

On Tuesday, in the back corner of a closet, we found “the box”.  It was a security box – a little surprising since it probably cost more than we figured Nonny would spend.  We were pretty sure we had all of Nonny’s important papers so were a little perplexed as to why she had a high-level security box.  It took us quite a while to find the keys as we had made quite a mess of her condo, emptying out drawers and closets to start sorting into piles of “toss, keep, donate”, and in that time, we had a whole lot of wild speculation going.  Were we all adopted and the papers were in there?  Witness protection proof?  Secret bank accounts?  All most all of us (there were ten of us in the condo at that point) were thinking we would find her wedding ring.

This is what we found when we opened the box:

As a non-believer, I was a little hesitant to unseal this envelope so my nephew pulled it out of the box.  He was a little wary as well.  There was one piece of paper in the envelope:

What?  Wars, Vaccumn (sic), David Surgery, Dorothy, Sunday School.  What?  Two hours of discussion.  The list was obviously made two and a half years ago.  That’s when David’s first surgery happened and was when Dorothy, her neighbor across the hall passed away; we think that wars, David and Dorothy were ideal candidates for God to keep an eye on.  But vacuum and the Sunday School class?  And why this single sheet in this single envelope labeled God and locked by itself in a very secure box?  I mean, Nonny was an inveterate list-maker.  We found several of them while we were cleaning but none of the others made the box.

During our talks, we came up with more wild ideas about why, why, why.  I won’t go into all of them here but I’ll tell you mine, simply because it got the most laughs.

Sometime in the future, 10 people (all strangers) will be staying at a fancy spa on a little island in the Caribbean.  Beginning the first night of their stay, two of these folks have envelopes delivered to their room.  In each envelope is a notecard with the word “wars”.  At breakfast, they all scratch their heads about it, but then later in the day, both folks are found murdered.  And of course, the only boat has been disabled and no one’s phones can get a connection off the island.  Too far to swim to the nearest island.  One the second night, two more folks get an envelope with a card waying “vacuum”.  You guessed it… both those folks are found dead during the next day.  The remaining six folks have one day to figure out the clues before the next deaths….

Any better thoughts?  Do you have a lock-box?  Will it be a mystery to your heirs?

35 thoughts on “The Box”

  1. “Vacuum” is the key. The heading for this list should be “Things that suck”. The lock box is a suggestion box.

    We have a similar box but larger- big enough to hold hanging files. It’s not locked. It’s a fireproof box intended as a substitute for a box at the bank, which our bank no longer offers. No mysteries in there. Just a lot of probably superfluous papers.

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

    2. That works great for four out of the five! Of course, I happen to know that she adored her Sunday school class so we need a different reason for the last one.

      Liked by 3 people

      Reply

      1. Maybe she was dismayed that she couldn’t expect to continue her Sunday school forever. Each item on the list sucks in its own way.

        Liked by 3 people

        Reply

  2. So you have not yet found the wedding ring? Maybe it got sucked up in the vacuum cleaner. Check the bag (but how many years has it been missing). This box is fascinating and it should engender many plots. The “Knives Out” folks would have a blast. I think it is nice to make a list of what God should worry about (and not me).

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

    1. Nope, we never found the ring. It’s been a few years and my guess is that it’s long gone, probably accidentally swept into the trash or vacuumed up. The vacuum actually had a fairly new bag in it.

      Liked by 3 people

      Reply

  3. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    I will be interested to read the thoughts of our resident Baboon ministers and how they ascribe meaning to The Box. I think it was her prayer of sorts. She had things to discuss with God. Four things sucked and she was grateful for Sunday School.

    This situation is one I find very funny–she left a mystery behind! (I am sending your post to my sister–I will bet it shows up in one of her books). I always enjoyed your summer Nonny parties where we got to interact with your Mom. She was funny and interesting to talk with. So in death she was similar. You had quite a Mom.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

    1. Yes, she did and both my middle sister and I were signatories on that box. It did not have the ring in it. It did however, have the car title which we had been looking for the day before.

      Liked by 3 people

      Reply

    1. I doubt it.. Nonny, even at 93 was pretty on top of her stuff. She had a file folder for everything. And I mean everything. I’m pretty sure that if she had taken the ring to a jeweler, we would’ve found some notation or file folder with that information in it. We all knew that she had taken her ring off three or four years ago because of the arthritis. So I’m still with the “it got accidentally tossed” theory.

      Liked by 3 people

      Reply

  6. I think “Things that suck is probably right, and the Sunday School one is there because it sucks that she could no longer do that?
    Or could they be things that she wants God to handle, take care of now that she cannot? Although then Vaccumn is kind of a mystery…

    We have a lock box at home (small safe?) that hold s a little cash, passports, Social Security/Medicare cards, etc. I’m afraid there are no mysterious things in there, but perhaps I should look at is, as if I’m a total stranger.

    Liked by 3 people

    Reply

    1. We don’t have a lock box at home. We are living at risk, trusting that the house won’t ever burn down. Passports, will, and deeds are just in file drawers. In the past 2 years I’ve read too many articles about folks who were burned out in & around Los Angeles, who had fireproof safes in their houses, and found them, after the fire, to be full of dust and ashes. I need to think through that, and take some sort of better action.

      Liked by 5 people

      Reply

    2. Actually, she went to her Sunday school class right up until the end. I talked to people at her service from her class and they all confirmed that she had been there on the Sunday before she passed away. She was concerned about the fact that the members of her class were getting older and the class was getting smaller. I cannot confirm if she was worried about that two years ago but I would think that’s possible.

      Liked by 4 people

      Reply

  7. Closest option, for me, is prayer list. Because she loved Sunday school does not mean she would not pray for it. Odd one then is vacuum. Perhaps it was acting up, that the ring might be in it. When my mother in law was dying, the woman on the other side of the other side of the room kept exhorting loudly that her car transmission be washed in the blood of the lamb. She refused to be quiet because she wanted Je-he-Sus up in heaven to hear her. They finally got her out of the room
    Clyde

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

  8. Setting aside the meaning of the list for a moment, Nonny’s procedure for communicating with her God is strangely elaborate and specific.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

    1. Agreed. This is still the big mystery to me — why buy an expensive lockbox and then put only that in it. Cause did you really need to write down a list for God? If God exists, wouldn’t God know?

      Liked by 3 people

      Reply

  9. What an interesting mystery! I have no insights into why or what.

    I do not have a box, but now I think I’m going to look into getting one so that I can leave a mystery for my brother if I should suddenly pass away.

    My mom had a large, ornate ring made from the gold from her two engagement rings and their diamonds. It wasn’t a ring you’d easily forget. When home health care started, I began to wonder about her jewelry. I found most of it where I expected, and some of her rings in a drawer in the bathroom. I couldn’t find the large ring. I asked her where she’d put it but she couldn’t remember. After she passed, my brother and I looked again for the ring, but we couldn’t find it. I wondered if she had given it to someone – she did things like that with her dementia.

    After she moved into memory care, my brother and I cleaned out her house to sell. I saw a jar of solution for jewelry cleaning and gave it a shake. You’re supposed to just dip jewelry into the solution, then rinse it and polish it. The jar rattled, so I opened it. There was blue solution and a small basket with a handle. I pulled it up, and lo and behold…

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

    1. My middle sister lives in the world that none of the rest of us live in. The stories she tells – it’s clear she really really believes them, but they don’t align with any of the rest of our stories. She said more than once during the condo cleanup that she was surprised that we didn’t find any of Nonny‘s expensive jewelry. She wondered whether Nonny had been selling it off. If this had actually happened, Nonny would’ve had notes about it (and a file folder), but more importantly, Nonny did not have any expensive jewelry. My middle sister’s story is that my dad loved her so much that he bought her a lot of expensive jewelry when they had money. This is not true. Nonny was never a big jewelry wearer. She didn’t like necklaces at all or bracelets, she didn’t have rings other than her wedding ring and she didn’t really care much for earrings except for studs. And my dad didn’t buy her jewelry; he bought her art. I didn’t argue with my sister during condo cleanup about this… we’ve all learned over the years that it’s pointless.

      Liked by 4 people

      Reply

      1. Yes, it appeared to be. My youngest brother has it now. He keeps saying he’s going to sell Mom’s gold jewelry, but it hasn’t happened yet.

        Like

        Reply

  10. My fireproof box has items easily identified. Birth certificate, automobile title, life insurance documents, bank numbers, Social Security card, investment documents.
    $765,432,098 in cash. ( I lied)

    Liked by 5 people

    Reply

  12. There is a feng shui tradition that’s sometimes called the Helpful People Box Cure. For that, you are instructed to write the names of people who might play an important part in helping you solve or achieve something, and put them in a box. The box represents a manifestation of support and is traditionally placed in the northwest corner of a residence.

    Could this be a variation on that? She assigned all the worries to one deity instead of a few helpful people? If you did not know the name of David’s surgeon or a good vacuum cleaner repair person, there could be logic in that.

    Liked by 4 people

    Reply

    1. Well, the box was actually in a south/southeast corner but other than that, this could work, although there wasn’t any red string in there….

      Liked by 2 people

      Reply

        1. Thanks. I debated for an entire month about whether to post this or not because I didn’t want anybody to think that Nonny was losing her marbles. And I didn’t want to be disrespectful. But we had so much fun that afternoon trying to come up with solutions to this mystery that I finally decided I would share.

          Liked by 2 people

  14. Here’s my theory, based on the book “The Thursday Murder Club.” One of the characters, Elizabeth, has a husband with dementia and is terrified of having dementia herself. So she regularly comes up with a random bit of information (like a license plate number), writes it down and hides it in a book. A couple of weeks later, she tests her ability to recall the fact and checks the book to see if she’s correct. Perhaps this was your mother’s own personal “cognitive test” (man, woman, camera, elephant, giraffe). She wrote a list of random words and phrases and locked them up to test herself later.

    Liked by 1 person

    Reply

Leave a comment