The postcards my grandmother gave me as a child always felt odd—sun-faded cards with cryptic notes while my friends got toys or clothes. I’d politely thank her and stash them away. She was affectionate in quiet, sideways ways.
When she died when I was seventeen, life moved fast: college, marriage, divorce. Twenty years later, while clearing out the attic, I found a glass jar filled with those same postcards. Reading them now, I noticed underlined letters on each card—letters that, when strung together, spelled: LOOK IN THE CEDAR CHEST—BOTTOM.
Inside my grandmother’s cedar chest, beneath linens, I found a hidden folder filled with photographs, letters, and documents. Slowly, a secret unfolded: my grandmother, Zahra, had given birth to my mother in Iran, lost her due to political danger, and later came to America. She raised me as “Grandma,” but in truth, she was my mother. The postcards had been breadcrumbs, guiding me toward the truth she couldn’t safely speak aloud.
As I pieced together her past—the flight from Iran, the adoption, the letters to the man she loved—I realized how her quiet, steadfast presence had shaped my life. The love I thought was from a grandmother had always been from a mother, disguised to protect me.
Now, I live in her old house, share her lessons with my own daughter, and keep the postcards framed—a crooked line of proof that love sometimes hides, waits, and finally reveals itself when the time is right.