Moms and Cards

[Kaneen]

This thread about moms and cards really strikes a chord with me, especially when it comes to its timing. My dear mother passed away a little over a week ago at the age of 91. Such a wonderful and amazing mom, I was so blessed to be her son.

I collected cards as a kid from around 1969 to 1977. When I went away to college in 1979, I left the floor of my bedroom closet covered with boxes of cards, probably 5,000 or so. A year or 2 later I came home to visit one weekend, and all my cards were sitting in the basement beside the door leading out to the driveway. I asked my mom why my cards were sitting by the basement door, and she told me she cleaned out the closet in my room so she could make room for some things she wanted to store. She said she sat the cards by the door waiting to sit them out on trash day. I had stopped collecting when I discovered cars and women, lol. While I hated to see my childhood cards go, I certainly had no place to put them in a small college dorm room. So I didn't put up too much of a fight.

A few weeks later when I came back home for a visit, much to my surprise all my cards were back in my former bedroom closet...this time well-boxed and wrapped in plastic garbage bags to protect them! I asked mom what the deal was with my cards? She said, "Well, the day after you left to go back to school, I was watching the evening news. They had a story about a baseball card that sold for 100 dollars! Can you believe that?! I thought maybe yours might be worth something, so I was afraid to throw them away and brought them back upstairs."

Whew, that was a close one! I was saved from disaster by the fortunate timing of a news story that my mom just happened to see. A few years later when I got married and got a place of my own, I retrieved my cards and took them to live permanently with me.

Thanks for everything mom...you truly were the best!