This Unboxing The Past short story received Honorable Mention in the September 2023 Saturday Writers’ Prose Contest (which had a 2,023 word limit). It can be found in Anthology #17, Writing Buffet.
Hmmm, I don’t remember ordering anything, she thought as she walked across the room. The feminine handwriting in the upper left-hand corner caught her attention first:
Larry Logston
3/25/1936 – 8/8/2021
Dropping her gaze to the printed label, Jeanine realized the box she’d forgotten about had finally arrived. Jeanine’s eyes shifted to a space beyond the ceiling as she silently offered a prayer of gratitude: Thanks, Amanda, for all you did for him and for keeping this safe, not knowing if it would ever find a home.
Jeanine solemnly shuffled to the kitchen, returning with a small pair of scissors. Standing over the sealed box, she paused in midair as if part of her was afraid some devastating memories or truths might float out. It’s sad that a person’s life can be reduced to one box, she thought.
“What is that?” Joe asked.
“It’s the box of personal effects that Amanda found after Larry died,” Jeanine pensively replied.
That Jeanine’s biological father was a stranger in her life hadn’t been given much serious thought until Bill, her stepfather, died. Ever since Jeanine was 8, Bill had been the man she called and thought of as Dad. He had loved, guided, and disciplined Jeanine as if she was his own. And in all those years, the only times Jeanine was aware Larry voluntarily gave her any thought was his visit to their family farm at the end of her junior year and a $500 graduation check a few months later, which arrived unexpectedly by mail.
Jeanine’s mom, Fran, had died of cancer years ago; Mae, Jeanine’s lone spinster aunt, soon followed from pneumonia. Once Bill’s health started to decline, Jeanine again wondered about Larry; would the last of her elders soon be gone?
Not quite ready to explore the unknown, Jeanine slid the sealed box to the couch center. Slowly lowering to her seat, her thoughts took her into the past.
Decades prior, Jeanine had gone to great lengths to hunt Larry down. He might like to know his oldest daughter is getting married, she had thought. Because Larry had been a career military man, Jeanine speculated the Navy’s pension department could put her in touch, assuming Larry was still alive. It was an indirect and drawn-out process, but one that had worked. Larry responded to Jeanine’s forwarded letter, with a few phone calls to follow until they ran out of things to say.
As Bill’s health deteriorated, Jeanine once more set out to find Larry, this time finding a number and connecting by phone. Their conversations mirrored previous ones – cordial but brief, lacking emotional depth. Each time they spoke, Larry openly joked, in self-deprecating fashion, how he was never meant for family life. Overall, Jeanine sensed that Larry was and always had been a socially awkward hermit, masking loneliness with jokes and burying sadness in money he had no reason to save.
Jeanine also was intrigued at Larry’s self-perceived sense of being a lady’s man. Was that the reason he and Mom came undone? She and her mom never discussed the details of that life, and now with her mom gone, those answers were forever lost.
The antique wall clock chimed the hour, snapping Jeanine back to the present. With scissors in hand, she proceeded to cut through time’s barrier and peek into Larry’s boxed-up life. Jeanine had no idea what to expect.
Inside, edge to edge and top to bottom, were dozens of photos of various sizes stacked on countless commendation letters Larry had received throughout his career. There were certificates, military awards in cases, passports, even grade cards from a private college where Larry had studied in later years. Jeanine was surprised at how much of Larry’s life was here.
Going back to the top of the stack to examine the photos more closely, Jeanine discovered Larry as a young, uniformed man, lean in both build and experience. That photo was followed by a few more of Larry at various stages in life. They brought a sad smile to her face.
A yellowed photo album page, long removed from its binder, contained three square black and white photos captioned the year Jeanine turned five. In each, Jeanine and her sister Darlene wore the same matching dresses, their faces alive with smiles. One photo captured them on the sidewalk, with most of Larry’s family in the background admiring a motorcycle Larry straddled. Missing was Larry’s mother, Jeanine’s grandmother, likely a proud photographer that day.
Then an unexpected, candid snapshot made Jeanine’s heart skip a beat. In it, Larry’s father was crouched down with Jeanine and Darlene, one granddaughter at each knee and a prideful smile that lit up his face.
Absorbing this time-capsule moment, Jeanine was filled with the loss of grandfathers she never knew. What few interactions she may have had with Larry’s father were long lost to her memory, eroded by time. Her mother’s father had died four months before Jeanine was born, and Bill’s father fell ill and died just weeks after Jeanine’s mom and he married. Every little girl should have a grandfather to spoil her, Jeanine thought.
The next two photos stirred Jeanine’s heart once more. The first was a professional black and white photo of her at two years old, adorned in what she presumed was a red, white, and blue sailor-type dress, its nautical theme portrayed through a satin-stitched sailor’s anchor at the bodice and a knotted satin bow kerchief. Bringing her to a full stop was the color school photo she had sent to Larry her senior year, her own handwriting on the back.
The box contents blurred as Jeanine’s eyes stung, tears pooling at the rim. I wasn’t a total nothingness in his life! Maybe it was more a pain deeply buried in a void he tried to fill. The thought was both consoling and painful. The one thing Jeanine secretly hoped to find were the letters she had written him over the years. They weren’t there.
Overwhelmed, Jeanine lowered the box to the hardwood floor, knelt, then lifted a handful of photos from the box, arranging them around her. As she flipped the photos front to back, the numerous nameless monochrome faces triggered a wave of hopelessness. Jeanine raised her head, staring blankly out the rippling lace sheers of the French doors. In that moment, Jeanine realized: Larry’s life is like the obscured view beyond that glass. I can almost see the landscape, but all the fine details are lost.
By now, dusk was setting in, stealing the room’s light and casting ghostly shadows. The floor and its temporary tenants mirrored her contemplative state. It was all so much.
Jeanine turned to look at Joe, who sat quietly behind her on the couch, head down, reading his iPad. She was always grateful he allowed her time and space to explore and express herself, but sometimes having too much space for too long allowed a gale of thoughts to unmask her emptiness. There were times she desperately needed two strong arms to keep her together until the storms subsided. Inside her head was screaming; this was one of those times.
Realizing even she didn’t fully understand the breadth and depth of her emotions, Jeanine decided to work through it alone, wandering into the kitchen to grab a mint chocolate chip cookie, her favorite vice.
Returning to the family room, Jeanine’s attention was drawn to some typed pages in the box, their content in table form. Lifting the stapled document from its resting place, she read the caption: “U.S. Naval Career – Larry Logston, Chief Warrant Officer W-3, USN Retired.” Quickly leafing through and scanning the pages, she realized this was a diary of sorts of Larry’s training and whereabouts over a span of 22 years. It set out dates, ship names and cities, countries, commands, and numerous medals awarded, with commentary scattered throughout.
Flipping back to the first page, Jeanine absorbed it all in sequence, noting a generic reference to her mom on page two: “One time the ship went to Seattle to pick up troops. Met a young lady. I was young but started noticing the honies. Thereafter did my best to become attached to a ship going in that direction.” Noting the timeframe, Jeanine surmised Larry had been around 18 when he first met her mother. Jeanine knew that by the age of 20, they had married and thirteen months later she, their first child, was born. Oh, so young, with so much of life still transforming and unfolding, she thought.
Jeanine’s thoughts turned to her own life, marrying later at age 31, and soon thereafter learning she would never bear children. I guess when you think about it, each life has its own holes. If and how we choose to fill and mend them determines our path to again making ourselves whole, she reasoned.
With this, the inner darkness lifted and Jeanine’s focus was renewed. She returned to the box contents to see what else she might find. Two passports spoke of Larry’s lone travels to countries around the world. Jeanine pondered the gifts and struggles of such a nomadic life but lacked the personal experience to weigh them all out. A third passport carried a single stamp from 1966, the year their family life fell apart. A fourth passport issued in 2000 remained empty, seemingly the year Larry’s life no longer inspired him to get up and go.
Nearly everything in the box represented a life she never knew or experienced, a life that ended as a mystery, with adventures unshared.
Oh, the mysterious twists and turns of life, she mused.
Jeanine then replayed the more recent events that brought her to this point. The prior Father’s Day, she had again tried to contact Larry, this time getting a stranger’s voicemail greeting. A Google search revealed he had died months earlier, a simple obituary reading “Logston, Larry 85, of Sarasota, died August 8, 2021. If you knew Larry or his family, please call 941-636-4314.”
It took a few calls to the funeral home, but Jeanine eventually learned Larry had died in a hospital, with no visitor friends to provide guiding information. Days after Larry’s death and upon learning of his career, the funeral director had then arranged a military burial.
When their call ended, an online search of the National Cemetery Administration gravesite locator took Jeanine to a temporary grave marker image: Date of Death: 08/08/2021, Date of Interment: 09/30/2021. More than seven weeks in a cold, steel place, his body in limbo. Had anyone even missed Larry? The revelation was unsettling and reduced Jeanine to sobs.
The following day the funeral director called Jeanine back to pass on the one name and phone number she had – Amanda Peters. Amanda had been Larry’s friend and a recent live-in assistant, having moved to Georgia just weeks before Larry died. She also had been the one, from miles away, to seek out Larry’s whereabouts when their weekly call didn’t happen and then later help the funeral director give him the burial he deserved.
Overwhelmed with emotions, Jeanine called and spoke with Amanda over the next few days, with Amanda sharing stories of Larry and the person she had known. It was also Amanda who had safeguarded this box, allowing Jeanine to now begin unpacking her own past.
As the clock again reminded Jeanine she had a life of her own, she lovingly placed the photo of a sailor’s young daughter on the mantel then gathered the remaining contents to put them back in the box. Jeanine silently vowed to spend more time exploring the story these colorless, inanimate objects might have to share. I also need to do a better job with friends and loved ones so the rest of my life isn’t portrayed in dull shades of gray, she thought.
But right now, at this moment, it was time for Jeanine to let ghostly shadows find some rest.
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