Before-bed read

When faced with life’s biggest questions like, “Is he the one?” Whitney Owens longed for the wisdom only a mother can impart—but her mother was long gone. She never imagined the way her mother would answer

My mom died when I was in my 20s. The loss was devastating. Although time has softened the pain, it hasn’t stopped me from wanting to pick up the phone and share special moments with her. I’ve thought about how nice it would be to talk with her so many times over the years, like when I fell in love, had my first child, and bought my first house. I expect I’ll never stop feeling that way.

I really wanted to talk to her when I met my husband. James and I dated on and off for a few years before getting married. During that period, I thought so many times how nice it would have been to call my mom, get her wisdom and know what she thought of him. My dad and stepmother were great throughout that time, but I still missed my mom.

One day, my dad called to let us know that he and my stepmother were preparing their house to sell it. He had a few boxes of my mom’s possessions still stored for my sisters and me, so he invited us over to go through them and choose items we’d like to keep. It was an emotional night for the whole family.

The boxes contained everything from clothes to pictures and jewelry. One large box was full of pottery. My mother had always loved pottery made by local artists, so I had grown up with

“And then it happened.

As James later described it, it was like the whole room went dark until all he could see was the pot. His heart started racing, and the realization hit him like a tidal wave.”

it adorning shelves around the house. Some of the pieces were pretty, but pottery really wasn’t my thing, so I moved on to another box.

James, on the other hand, was fascinated by it. He’d taken ceramics classes in high school and college, so hand-thrown pottery always appealed to him. As he dug through the box, one piece in particular stood out because the style was so similar to his own.

One feature on the pot that really caught his eye was the thumb indentations pressed into the sides. In college, one of his ceramics professors had pointed out that many of his pieces looked alike. In an effort to branch out, James had employed that same thumbpress technique on some of his pots.

Riveted by the similarities, he turned the pot over to see the signature of the artist. To his surprise, the artist had the same initials—J.O. Then James noticed something else that was distinctive. When James signed his pottery, he not only carved his signature into the clay, but he also glazed it on. This piece was done in that exact manner.

And then it happened. As James later described it, it was like the whole room went dark until all he could see was the pot. His heart started racing, and the realization hit him like a tidal wave. The pot looked so much like one of his own because it was one of his own. That pot, which I clearly remember seeing on the living room shelf in my younger years, had been thrown by my husband and bought by my mom at a college street fair around 17 years before we even started dating.

The serendipity of the encounter astonished us all that night. It felt like a loving embrace from my mom—a confirmation that, had she lived long enough to know James, she would have chosen him just like she chose that piece of his pottery. That pot gives me peace. Although my mother may or may not have met him when she bought that pot, I feel strongly that if she were here, she’d be holding that pot, smiling and telling me, “Well done.”

—Whitney Owens