Garden Plaque

My grandparents had a sign similar to this one in the garden of their lake cottage.  Grampa was as close to his god out there than anywhere.

The lake cottage was my salvation.  There was no abuse that happened under my grandparents watchful eye.  For that little bit of breathing room, for gifting me with those few sparkling memories as exist, I am grateful.

When my mom brought the sign home with her after my Grami passed, I felt a sigh escape my spirit.  Every time I read that plaque in her front garden, I was whisked back to safety, to momentary happy, to a home on the lake.

My mom is now in Memory Care.  I went looking for some pieces in her garden that I could install in the garden there to make it feel more familiar.  This sign was top of the list.  Things that she has known for a long time, such as this plaque, which has to be over 50 years old are easier for her to remember.  I found St. Francis, a few bird feeders, but the plaque was MIA.

Who would steal a 50 year old plaque?  Who indeed.  I narrowed the field to 4 in a heartbeat.  My sibs.  The oldest - out of towner.  No.  I texted the youngest - no.  The middle-no.  That left just one.  The one who had helped himself to the creche just weeks after we moved my mom.  Weeks where my younger brother and I were still helping mom get settled.  While we were doing that, he went to her house and took the creche, including the hand made stable.  I walked in to her house one afternoon, her Christmas tree still in place, a few boxes left from Christmas day, the usual AD external clutter that matches her interior landscape.  The creche was gone.  He had asked (or more exactly his pushy bullying wife had made him ask) if he might have it since it had been a gift from them.  I said yes meaning after mom passed, they could have it.  Not two minutes after the words fall from my mouth, they could go and get it.

The plaque disappeared about the same time.  And I have no doubt that this shit hole took both.  Not took it.  STOLE IT!  My mom would never give that away.  But I'm sure shithole tells himself just that, that she gave it to him, that he is somehow entitled to it, that he deserves it more than the rest of us because only he would appreciate it.  The thief?  A retired cop.  And the irony doesn't end there.  The plaque which had reminded me of safety and having a "normal" life?  It resides at my abuser's house.  And now this piece of nostalgia has been forever contaminated and my abuser still picks away at my safety.