I bent down to see what had made the noise and found a small, intricately carved wooden box. It was dusty and worn, much like the blankets, but there was an air of mystery about it. My daughter, always curious, knelt beside me. Her eyes were wide with wonder as she asked, “What’s inside, Dad?”
We opened the box together and discovered it was filled with small treasures. There were a few pieces of costume jewelry, a faded photograph of a young woman who must have been my mother, a letter written in a delicate script, and a small, ornate silver locket. My heart skipped a beat as I realized the significance of these items. They were fragments of my mother’s life, echoes from a past she rarely spoke about.
