On that last Friday that Peter, John & I shared with her - talking & laughing in her hospital room - Mim asked me to go to where she'd been living & retrieve some things from her room. Some, she wanted; others, she wanted me to have. Mostly books & dvds. But she specifically mentioned wanting me to take the commemorative coins struck for Charles & Diana's wedding. Struck me as a bit strange - they are worthless, now - but did as she requested.
The commemorative coins aren't worth anything, but something with them is priceless. A couple days ago, opening the small plastic ziploc the coins were in, came across the true treasure. A small plastic box - no more than 2" x 1" x .75" - with ARBUTUS MOTOR HOTEL in gold letters across the top.
Oh my - so many feelings came flooding in; time swirled around my head.
How delighted Mim must have been, finding & staying at the Arbutus Motor Hotel - that was the Maryland town where Mom & her family attended church! For us, Arbutus brought to mind Mom's Baltimore home, her beloved father, the long leisurely days of childhood with Bets under the lilac bushes.
I opened the lid & the scent of the soap within it wafted up, as fresh as if she'd just returned last week. It's impossible to think she didn't get a mate to the tiny soap box for Mom, but I don't recall ever seeing it in her things, so the sight of it took me totally unawares.
Arbutus Lodge was built for a wealthy merchant in the late 1700s. Charles J. Cantillon, Mayor of Cork in 1865, extended the house in the 1860s. Later occupants of the house included Sir Daniel and Lady Ellen O'Sullivan, who were the great-grandparents of the actress Mia Farrow, and the Dwyer family who owned the Sunbeam Wolsey textile plant in the city.
In 1971 it opened as a restaurant and hotel managed by the Ryan family and quickly picked up a reputation as one of the finest restaurants in Ireland. The Ryan family sold the hotel in the late 1990s and in March 2005 Cork City Council granted permission for the partial demolition of the hotel and its conversion to an apartment complex.
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