Photo and Commentary ©2025 by Shelley Schurch
Sunday, May 11, 2025
On really rainy childhood days, when to go outside would mean getting too cold and drenched, I would often ask my mother if we could look in her cedar chest together. She always said Yes.
It was a big, beautiful polished wooden chest, ornately carved. The way I remember the story is that her first husband, who died after they’d been married only six years, had bought it for her in San Francisco’s Chinatown.
My mother was a keeper. She was not a hoarder, nor a minimalist. She kept things that were dear to her, and on those rainy afternoons as we lifted first one item and then another from the chest, she would tell me stories about them. I loved hearing her stories.
Treasures inside her cedar chest included her wedding dress and shoes, my father’s wedding vest, baby books for myself and my two sisters, our report cards (which seem to fall short of the “treasure” label, but she did the choosing, not me!), lots and lots of photo albums and single photos, newspaper clippings, letters and cards, poems I wrote for her, little gifts we made for her, and more.
Perhaps the most unusual item was a pair of spurs reportedly worn by a woman cattle-rustler. My father was from rural Nevada, and he was the one who tucked these spurs into the cedar chest. I remember taking them to school one day for “show and tell,” and regaling my class (third grade, I think) with the story of this cattle-rustling woman. No telling what my teacher thought about my treasure; I think she only said a faint “Thank you” when I completed my tale.
In the photos above you see a birthday card, cover and interior, I made for my mother when I was quite young. Although I think the artwork and printing are nicely done, if I do say so myself, I wonder if she kept this more for its unintended humor. It was probably the only birthday card she received that featured a colorful turkey. In my defense, her birthday was two weeks before Thanksgiving, and I’d probably been practicing turkey-drawing at school and thought it a splendid choice of illustration.
After my mother and father died, my oldest sister inherited the cedar chest. So one night, while we were still together after my father’s memorial service, the three of us daughters sat down on the living room carpet and emptied the chest, dividing up the treasures. Some were easy — we each took our own baby book and report cards – but we somehow managed to amiably choose how to distribute the rest of the chest.
My sisters pronounced me the most sentimental of our trio, so I ended up with many of my mother’s treasures. What she kept, I keep.
I keep them in a much less ornate cedar chest, to which I’ve added more recent treasures of my own.
Looking through these treasures, inherited and new, and thinking about all the stories they represent, I’ve come to one clear conclusion about my mother’s life: What she held most dear, what she kept the most, was her faith.
Her father died in a logging accident when she was 2½ years old, her childhood was difficult, her first husband died young, but she kept her faith in God.
She could echo Paul when he said, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” (2 Timothy 4:7 NIV)
What she kept, I want to keep.
I call on you, my God, for you will answer me;
Turn your ear to me and hear my prayer.
Show me the wonders of your great love,
You who save by your right hand
Those who take refuge in you from their foes.
Keep me as the apple of your eye;
Hide me in the shadow of your wings . . .
(Psalm 17:6-8)
He who calls us to His side is faithful to hear us, to save us, to keep us, and to show us the wonders of His great love. He looks at each of us, and calls us keepers.