Discoveries

Today is the anniversary of my mother's death. I'm not looking for sympathy or anything, it's just it was a weird day today and that it was the anniversary of her death kind of plays into that.

After my mother died, my step-father gave me a bunch of stuff of hers, including old letters (including one I wrote to the tooth fairy explaining that I'd lost my tooth but would still like the money for it please and thank you). Anyway, as I went through everything I realized that there was a lot about my mother that I never knew. A LOT! And I envisioned a play about this discovery and thought about writing it. Then, like most my other story ideas, tossed it aside.

A couple of months ago I decided to resurrect that idea but work it a different way. Make it more fictionalized to where there is some actual facts that take place but the overall story is fiction. And that is what I have been working on lately.

But anyway, I wasn't really thinking about what today was until I'd read someone's blog and wondered if I was behind and then saw the date. THEN, I get mail (real mail, not email) from my step-father. He was sending me checks on his new bank account (he wanted someone to be able to write checks in case he wasn't able to - I've had this since my mother died but he's changing banks). He included a note that read (after a series of information details) "Laura, this is info that someday, you are going to need. Although I don't plan on checking out soon, I might not have much notice. so - - -"

I opened this right after I'd read the blog that reminded me of what day it was. I drove back to work (this all was on my lunch break) and decided I would call him when I got back to the office (his number is in my day planner which was sitting on my desk). I wanted to be sure he was okay. He'd recently broken up with his girlfriend and I was concerned about the "tone" of the letter. Before I did that though, I decided to talk to someone about it and see what they thought. But before they got to my office, I opened my home email again and had an email from my step-father. Subject line was needtotalk (he didn't put any spaces in it either). Email read:

Laura, there are some some recent events that I need to let you know about. (okay, this was when my heart stopped...once I was able to breath again, I continued) No bad news, by the way, so don't worry. (our ideas of bad news differs so I wasn't totally convinced here) It's a little long and protracted to do on e-mail, so let me know when you will be home and have some free time to talk.

I didn't wait (plus my phone - not my phone line, my phone - is screwed up so calling at home wasn't going to work anyway) and called him.

Turns out he found out about a year ago that he inherited some land from my mother that he didn't know existed (he doesn't think she knew about it either). He was contacted by someone who wanted to do some tests for oil (mineral rights were retained by the family). He leased it to them and they contacted him about purchasing it outright last month. At this point I'm thinking he needs me to do some running for him, since he lives in another state, and I'm trying to figure my time but I'm saying "Don't sell the mineral rights! Don't sell the mineral rights!" For one thing, wanting to lease the land to check for oil and then wanting to purchase it (including mineral rights) a year later - well my thought was they found something and didn't plan to share that information.

Anyway, long story short, he wasn't selling anything. He wants to GIVE me the land and the mineral rights. (I feel funny about that but that's a whole other story.) We didn't talk about what day it is but he sounded really emotional - and that's just not him. I'm still a little worried about him. He said he was fine - that he was just doing what was right.

Anyway, the whole point of this is, I'm still learning things about my mother - and even her family (when I went to look up the land, I learned a lot of things I hadn't known...a LOT). It's just been one of those weird days. I'm just glad it's almost over.