The envelope was plain and white, and it sat at the very bottom of a box marked “Misc.”
The rest of that box looked like trash. There was a bag of old keys, a church directory from 1979 and a broken watch band. There was even a receipt for a refrigerator my mother had replaced years before.
Inside the envelope were two savings bonds.
I think about that a lot. We had 30 days to empty her house, and I was tired. I could have carried that box out to the curb without ever looking inside. (I was that tired.)
So let me tell you what not to throw away when clearing a parent’s house. I don’t mean the keepsakes this time. I mean the papers, keys and small plain things that don’t look like much. If they end up in the trash, it can cost your family a lot.