Patti went through the house and packed up all the stuff she wanted. Some of it she sent back to her home in Virginia. The rest she and Ray, who at that time was my "brother in love", packed into Dad's car and drove up there.

I didn't want much. There were a few items that were important to me. One of them was Dad's "china bull". (That's a whole other story.) There were also a few boxes of stuff that I brought to my house. The rest, we gave away.

I invited all the people from my school to come to Dad's house one day after school. I told them they could have anything they wanted, but they had to haul it away that day, and I would not be carrying anything. About ten people took me up on it. One man even scheduled some other times with me. I was more than willing to be there.

Rachel and I are not the garage sale type. We weren't looking to make any money off of my folk's stuff. We wanted to give it away. Some of Dad's neighbors, a few I didn't even know, also came to see what was happening. I told them to help themselves, also.

It was amazing. We got everything out of the house in one week. Oh wait. That's not true. Nobody wanted Mom's ugly blue couch with the copper flowers on it. That took a little longer. The cafeteria manager from my school actually came and took it the next week. She was thrilled to learn that it was a sleeper that had never even been opened up!

So there I was back at my own home with a small truckload of boxes from Mom and Dad's house. I stacked it neatly in one side of the garage and let it sit there for the past two years. I just couldn't get myself to touch any of it. It was too painful.

This week, I became obsessed with finding a missing reel of 8mm film that I shot at Taipei American School in 1973. It's all my Taiwan friends' fault. They are all going to a reunion in Las Vegas soon, and have been swamping facebook with photos of their time on the island. I want to share my movie.

The film is about ten minutes long. It was called "The Retarded Air Conditioner", but had nothing to do with air conditioners or retardation. I seem to remember it being more about a bunch of my friends having a paper fight with big balls of notebook paper. I don't really care what it is. I just want to be able to see, and share, that special moment of time. It will be a rare treat, if I find it. We didn't have many movie cameras to play with back then.

In my search for the film, I came across a box of little photo albums in the pile of boxes in my garage. There were about fifty of them. Dad must have been the curator, because most photos have his writing on the back saying what they are and naming the people in them. Many of them are full of photos of the many trips my parents took to see people, places, or things. Most of them, I had never seen.

Occasionally, there would be a photo or two that were totally out of place. I'm talking about things like a photo of my sister at about two years old stuck in the middle of the cruise photos taken shortly before Mom died. Or pictures of me celebrating my tenth birthday stuck in the middle of an album of photos of Dad's trail ride in Wickenburg.

When I got to the bottom of the box, I found a small filebox of recipes. It holds 3" x 5" index cards, mostly in Mom's handwriting or typed on her old manual typewriter. The box itself is covered in the most hideous blue, gold, and white marble-like contact paper I have ever seen.

I was suprized to find this box. I already have the bigger recipe file Mom always had on her kitchen counter. I went through that one looking for all of my favorite dishes right after she died. I didn't find many of them. Even Patti mentioned to me once how odd it was that none of the good stuff seemed to be there. Now, I knew why. Mom kept all of the most coveted recipes in this special place. I suddenly realized that I had hit the jackpot!

I still haven't found my movie from 1973. Maybe, I only thought I was looking for it. The photos and recipes are such a wonderful new treasure for me, that maybe- just maybe- Mom put the idea to look for the movie in my head just to guide me to them. You don't have to believe that type of thing. I'm not sure I do. But, what if?

Anyway, I now have some of Mom's best recipes. A few I already had copies of. But, these are in her own hand! I have enchilada pie, stuffed cabbage, truffles, rum balls, macaroons, southern chess pie, meat pies, manacotti, date balls, butter fudge, pecan crunch cookies, shrimp dip, 7-layer bars, fruit nut bars, pineapple bars, date balls, caramel layer chocolate squares, barbecued ham, party mix, prune cake, Chinese cucumber salad, Mom's Christmas cookies, and creamed tomatoes. I am going to start using one of her recipes every month just so I can spend time in the kitchen with her. Who knows, maybe Mommy will let me lick the spoon!