1877:
Kitty had decided to have Matt's and her family continue the tradition of snipping a lock of their toddler's hair for posterity. She told Matt about it, and he nodded in agreement, understanding her desire for the continuity in their family that each had lacked.
On Jamie Adams Dillon's second birthday, a lock of his curly reddish-brown hair was added to the box.
The tradition was dutifully passed down, and eventually locks of the two-year-old children of Rose and Jamie were added. Then their children's children, and so on through the years, with the female children being the custodians of the tradition and the wooden box.
1997:
One hundred and twenty years after Kitty had carefully put her Rosie's curl in the box, Katy Scott, Kitty's great granddaughter, was ready to entrust and pass along the tradition to Rusty Talbot.
Rusty carried the box over to Nanny, who indicated for her to unlock it. Sitting down in a chair beside her great grandmother, Rusty turned the key and lifted the lid.
Nanny smiled as Rusty quizzically took out the top envelope with her own name and the year 1977 written on it, and opened it.
"This is my hair," she whispered. Tucking it back into the envelope, and placing it on the table, she looked through the stack remaining, all labeled with names and dates. The bottom envelope was yellowed, but the label written in a fine hand was still clear: 'Rose Russell Dillon 1877 Age Two'
Rusty looked at her great grandmother in wonderment, realizing that a lock of hair from every toddler in her family was in the box.
"Look under the bottom one, Rusty."
The young woman gently removed the stack of envelopes from the box, handed them to Nanny, then carefully lifted the dark blue cardboard folder from the bottom.
Opening it up, she gasped and tears came to her eyes. The tinted photo of the young couple smiling at each other looked as fresh as the day it was taken.
"Nanny…it's THEM…the beautiful woman and man from my dream!"
"Yes, I know, child. Your description was perfect. I have not seen them for so many, many years now. That photograph was taken forty years before I was born, and they were still a handsome couple when I was a small child, but the bloom of youth fades. Oh, how I envy your dream! I loved them so."
Rusty looked up from the photograph and into her great grandmother's moist green-grey eyes.
"But, Nanny, how…what does my dream mean?"
"That is up to you to find out, Baby. But think on this. The past is not so really far away. Think of the past and the present as two parts of the same river. Rusty, don't forget where you were brought up and what is still so near."
"And you are now the custodian of our family's tradition and history. I know you will live up to the trust."
The young woman nodded, put the photograph and envelopes back in the box, locked it, and took the key from the old woman. She went up to her room to ponder what her wise old Nanny had said.
Rusty did not mention the box to her parents, knowing that it was something private and special between her great grandmother and herself.
The last night of her visit, before she went to bed, she put the box on her bed, unlocked it and carefully looked inside each envelope. She smiled at noticing that every other generation's locks of hair were bright red, just like her own hair that she used to dislike.
Now she realized how special it was, especially after looking at the tinted photo of her great, great, great, great grandmother, Kitty Dillon. The beautiful woman from her dream.