Wooden box of treasures

The black button sparkles with the light and as I handle it I can see again the front of my Dad’s coat with its many black buttons. He always wore that coat on Christmas Eve when we went out in the late evening snow to midnight Mass. Snuggled in his arms I always felt secure and loved and it was hard to suppress the Christmas excitement as we trudged along the village path to the little candle lit church. I wonder to myself, how many years since he wore that coat? How did I end up with just one button? What happened to the coat?

Next I choose the multi coloured bell. It could be from a Christmas decoration, but I know with certainty that it came from my dear cat Mushka’s collar. He was a fine specimen of a Siamese, a chocolate seal point of the older type who was facing euthanasia; because of his fuller face and larger ears he was not considered true to breed. We rescued him from those heartless breeders and he repaid the reprieve with his everlasting love and devotion. When we finally had to have him put down at the age of 18 I kept his collar and put the bell in my little carved wooden box of treasures.

A square orange wooden bead which could have come from a bracelet or a necklace. Why did I keep this? And then I remember – my best friend Jenny made me a Buddhist mala for my 50^th birthday. I treasured that handmade mala of misshapen beads as it was the last thing I received from Judy. Shortly after my birthday she died tragically in a freak accident while bushwalking in the Blue Mountains; the path she was following collapsed as she rounded a bend and she was thrown to the bottom of the gorge. I kept that mala around my wrist for many years until finally one day the string broke as I was crossing a busy road in Sydney. Beads scattered everywhere on the street and I was only able to save one bead before the traffic lights changed. From then on this bead stayed in my wooden treasure box.

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