A few years after my dad died, my mom had hope chests made herself, my brother and myself. They have our names on the front, and three sheaves of wheat on the top (to symbolize our mainstay crop of wheat as farmers and three for the Trinity).

It sits in my bedroom, off in a corner. I rarely look inside. The only time it gets opened, is if I happen to run across an old photo of him I don't want to lose, or something that reminds me of my dad.

Yesterday, after I put my son down for a nap and the house was quiet, I opened up the hope chest. I had no real purpose for doing so - I couldn't think of anything I really needed to look at again or see. I have been feeling a real strong desire to go home again, to get centered again in my life. And the closest way to do that now was by opening up my hope chest for the first time in a long time.

And just like the last time I looked, there was his high school letter sweater, his high school diploma (his dad was the School Board President and had signed it, just like my dad had done for me when I graduated), shirts he wore, baseball caps for his college team and my high school team, a few of the pens he always kept at his desk, his wedding ring and high school class ring, an old movie reel of him playing baseball in high school (I really need to figure out how to see this, too), a silk tie, a Rolodex card with contact information for me at college written in his handwriting, the last business check he wrote me (the carbon, anyway), among many little trinket things I had bought for him growing up (including a paperweight made of wood - I bought it at Summer Camp one year, and I had really no money left after that, I remember, but I know I wanted my dad to have it).

I also found a stack of letters and cards.

Those are always the hardest for me to read, and I rarely do. I have skipped over a few in the past, in fact, because they remind me of a really rough part of my life, and a really hard time I put my dad through. I have always felt horrible about this part of my life.

I have no regrets - after all, they were lessons that had to be learned and I learned them, but I've always wanted to apologize to him for any heartache I caused. I've always wished I could have just a few minutes (okay, a lot more that a few) to sit with him now and show him how far I've come, to show him I could turn the ship around and make something of myself ...

While purusing these letters, I found one I didn't remember seeing before. I skimmed it, thinking I must have written it after he died; instead, it was one I had given him during my first semester in college. I had spent a page and a half telling my dad how much I appreciated him, how much I loved him, certain memories I had of him, how thankful I was to him for his 'strength and good character', and how I wanted to make him proud in my life. I told him I was very sorry for the hurt I caused him, and I wanted to prove to him how good I could be.

I don't remember writing this letter. Almost everything that happened right before he died got stamped out, blotted out, and erased. Finding absolute proof that I had apologized and told him how much he meant to me gave me wings on my heart again. I said out loud complete with tears, "Oh my God, I said I was sorry. I have spent twelve years feeling guilty for never apologizing, and I DID. Oh, thank God ...." It made me wonder what he felt when he read that letter. It obviously meant something to my father, because he saved it somewhere. I would like to think it was in his nightstand next to bed.

So, tucked between a card I made when I was five and a letter he wrote me, was the answer I had been looking for all along.

I only had to look at the foot of my bed, but silly me - I should have known it was in my heart all along.