Himitsu-Bako [The Puzzlebox]

Himitsu-Bako

On our Ninth Anniversary, I gave you an elaborately inlaid wooden box. A 5 sun, 10 step Japanese puzzle box and I told you I had placed a ‘Great Gift’ in a letter to you, within it.

I gave it to you, but you didn’t want the directions to open it. You tried many times to open it, to get to the ‘gift’ within. You never once asked for the directions, and tried many times to open it. Your perseverance was amazing, and you never truly gave up, only put it aside for a time. At times your frustration was enormous, and very humorous to me. Though your anger would increase with my humor, you never relented and asked for the directions, or help.

A short five months later, as you lay on your death-bed, you would toy with it in private. And when you became so wasted from the crab eating at you, breast and bone, liver and brain – I asked if you wanted me to open it for you, that you may read what I had written.

You simply replied, “If I get better, I will keep trying, if I don't, then I will know what you wrote when I die.”

A week after you were cremated, I used the directions, re-opened the box, and read the letter aloud to myself.

“My dearest love, know that I will always love you, this letter, is my Heart in a Box, for you to keep always. – your Loving Husband, John”

My tears fell on the pages, and now in the box, sealed against any but the most determined, are a letter, and my heart - a small metal urn with your ashes in it.

I don’t let anyone play with the box, as it sits there, on the mantle. I tell them only that it was yours, a gift from me, and now, a gift from you to me.