Stored Up Treasure

" Now listen, you rich people, weep and wail because of the misery that is coming upon you. Your wealth has rotted, and moths have eaten your clothes. Your gold and silver are corroded. Their corrosion will testify against you and eat your flesh like fire. You have stored up treasure in the last days. You have lived on earth in luxury and indulgence. You have condemned and murdered the innocent, who were not opposing you." [James 5: 1-6].

The woman was tall and willowy, and she wore her clothes well. Her white silk blouses gleamed against her perfect porcelain skin. Her woolen tweed skirts were woven with many subtle colors. Her fine leather shoes caressed the curves of her feet.

She was not a gentle, soft mother. She never hugged her children, or said, "I love". She ruled with a firm hand. Her children, and perhaps even her husband, were afraid of her; for her firm manner could turn cruel in an instant.

She judged and condemned others, even those whom she did not know, for their religion and their faith, for the color of their skin, for their lack of money, or for their ethnicity. Her sharp judgments condemned those strangers, who had no quarrel in the world with her. The woman's daughter knew in her heart that, in a way, her mother was murdering the innocent with her words. And a part of the daughter's heart died too. That part of her heart was the part that longed for Love.

The daughter grew up and left home and got married. One early spring day, her father arose, gulped down a cup of coffee-- and abruptly died. Maybe there was too much anger in his heart for him to stay any longer in this world.

The daughter immediately got into her car and raced to her mother's side. She found her mother sitting in her chair in the kitchen, looking frail, and thin and small. She was dressed in baggy pants and a stained old blouse. The cotton collar of the blouse was so frayed, it was split open. Her mother looked desperate and stricken. She was shaking visibly. This was not the powerful mother who had always struck fear in everyone's hearts.

Clearly, her mother could no longer live in this house alone. The decision was made to move the mother to a convalescent home.

The daughter's task was now to clear out the old house. In the dining room, she found stacks of silver trays. They had been stored up in the old sideboard. They had not been used since her grandmother's day, when they were put into service serving petit-fours on lace doilies. Now, the trays seemed small and not so grand. They were scratched and dark with tarnish. Their disappointing finish seemed a rebuke to her mother's delusions of grandeur.

The daughter examined the mahogany veneer sideboard closely. This piece always looked so important, with its Federalist style columns and its inset mirror. But the veneer was falling off in big pieces. It looked too fragile to transport.

The daughter took a closer look at the old oil paintings that had once appeared so impressive. But they were marred with alligator cracks and flaking paint. And when she took them down from the wall, there was a dark stain on the wall where the frame had rubbed into the plaster over the years.

In her mother's closet, the daughter found her mother's old woolen skirts and trousers. These were dusty and moth-eaten. And her mother had once seemed so powerful and glamorous in these clothes! The daughter also found boxes upon boxes stacked up, filled with brand new shoes and slippers. These would do her mother no good now. How much footwear would she need in a convalescent home?

In the living room, the daughter took down the damask draperies, with the lovely Jacobean flower and vine pattern that she had so loved. But when she held the draperies in her hands, she saw that the old lining had turned brown, and was rotted and torn into ribbons. She thought of relining the draperies, but as she turned the fabric over in her hands, she saw that the edges of even the fabric were rotting away.

When all the furniture and decorative items had been removed, and the house was finally empty, the daughter looked around. There was dust in the corners of the rooms, and cobwebs on the ceiling. The rooms looked forlorn and small. This was no longer the house that used to strike awe in the daughter's heart. Or that used to so impress its visitors.

The daughter found her mother sitting on the front steps, waiting to be taken to the convalescent home. Her mother appeared tiny and insignificant, like a small child.

The daughter said to her, "Mother, I thought you had all the power? I thought you were in charge in this family?"

And the mother looked down at her hands resting in her lap, said very quietly, "No, I never was in charge. It was all an illusion."


[Related Posting: "Clinging To Human Rules", Sept. 4, 2012].

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