People said Lilly was a great gal.  The bees knees!  And really good looking in her pictures, when she was 18 years old, back in 1945.  She had just married Bill, right before he was shipped off to the war.  He was fortunate to come back home, and return to her.

They led a happy and productive life, had kids and grandkids, and then Bill died.  They had been together for almost 60 years, so when he died, something inside her died as well.  Though she was rich with friends and family, life had Lost it’s purpose, and she started to decline.

At the most recent family get together, she was seen wandering aimlessly about, Lost.  It was then that a little miracle happened.  She suddenly brightened.  She had spotted her young husband and lover in the crowd of strangers.  She ran headlong into his arms, shouting “Billy!  Billy!” 

“I’m not Billy, grandma.  I’m your grandson, Bobby.”  The words confused her.  The smile left her face, and she shuffled away, deflated.  She sat down by the window, staring blankly at the rain outside.

Bobby felt bad about it.  His grandma had really Lost it.  Maybe he should have gone along with her and pretended to be young grandpa Bill, for her sake.  But it was weird.  No, he decided that giving her reality checks was the better thing to do.  He sat down next to her and held her hand.

“Saving it for a rainy day,” she said softly.

“What do you mean?” asked Bobby, just making idle conversation.  She looked at him with a playful look and said, “You know what I mean, silly.  The money.  The stocks in the safe.”

This time, Bobby decided to play along.  “Come on, Lilly.  Let’s go take a peek in the safe!”  He had never heard of a safe, or of any money, or stocks.  Grandma Lilly and grandpa Bill had led a frugal life, because of the Great Depression, or so he had heard.  They didn’t like to spend money.  They distrusted banks.  They were always afraid of the next Great Depression.

Lilly’s eyes lit up again.  She squeezed Bobby’s hand hard, and led him upstairs to the bedroom.  He blushed as his family members pointed at them and made all sorts of joking remarks.

Once inside the bedroom, Lilly sat on the edge of the bed and looked eagerly at the bedside stand.  The heavy, ancient thing had been there forever.  Bobby opened the drawers but found nothing.  Lilly smiled another playful smile.  She got up and started to move the bedside stand away from the wall, exposing a wall safe!  It looked heavy, old, black, with a spinning combination lock and a long handle.  Bobby’s eyes widened as he thought, “What the hell?”

“Grandma, does anyone know about this?”

Hearing the word “grandma” momentarily threw her off, but she quickly regained her Lost imaginary youth and joyfully started opening the safe.  She knew the combination by heart and had no trouble  with the lock and handle.  Inside, was a large manila envelope.  Bobby was a little disappointed not to find stacks of old dead presidents.

Lilly pulled out the manila envelope and proudly handed it over to Bobby.  He peeked inside to see a stack of documents that made no sense to him, though he did recognize the letters AT&T.  The oldest ones were dated in the 1920’s, before the Depression.  The stocks had become nearly worthless in the 1930’s.  Then there were others dated in the 1940’s and 50’s.

Turns out the telephone company had grown a bit over the years.  The stock had split many, many times.  Even the company had been split and reshaped itself.  And the Lost certificates had grown from a few hundred bucks to a crazy large fortune.  Grandma Lilly was worth about 5 million dollars!

After that, Bobby didn’t mind it so much that Lilly confused him for grandpa Bill.  She was quite generous with her money.  For his part,  and to his credit, he was kind and thoughtful towards his grandma.  But he drew the line at the bedroom stairs.  That was still weird.