In May, I wrote a column about a bag of keys I found in my mom’s house. This is another story from that bag of keys.

One day, about a month after my mom died, I put the quart-sized bag of loose and ringed keys into my aunt’s hands.

She reacted the same way I had—surprised by the sheer number of keys. We began sorting through the loose keys and rings together. One set stood out: older keys on a worn black plastic key ring, still tagged with the name of a business my nana used to frequent in the 1970s.

They were the keys to my nana’s last apartment.

Before she began splitting her time between my mother and my uncle, my nana lived alone. She moved out only after walking in on two burglars in the middle of robbing her apartment—a moment that rattled our entire family. Two of my uncles were police officers, and they insisted she leave the neighborhood immediately. The burglary felt personal and destabilizing. Among the items stolen was my mother’s engagement ring, my nana’s wedding ring and some of my great-grandmother’s silver.

We happened to be visiting Nana that week. I have only a vague memory of police officers interviewing her, but I had no idea then how much that single event would shape my life.

After that, Nana became a constant presence. She was both familiar and endlessly surprising: deeply religious, a devoted New York Mets fan, a Robert Redford admirer, a reader of Harlequin romance novels, a great home cook and a woman who adored the Richard Gere and Julia Roberts movie, Pretty Woman. After my parents’ divorce, she became my primary after-school caretaker.

I’m sure I drove her crazy—the noise, the questions, the amount of food I could put away. But I spent hours with her every day. And because of that time, I have memories I otherwise wouldn’t. Stories about her social life in the ‘20s. Lessons about how to choose the right produce, how to cook properly and how food can be a form of love.

If Nana hadn’t moved in with us, I’m not sure those stories would have been passed down at all.

That single set of keys unlocked a flood of memories. Her meatloaf. English muffin pizzas. Apple pie with a homemade crust that put bakeries to shame. We argued often—loudly—but we loved each other. I remember how the house would swell with relatives for holidays and Nana’s birthdays because Nana was the matriarch of my family. 

Of course, when extended family packed the house for holidays, my nana also loved to stir the pot.

More than once, Nana would quietly instigate an argument between two relatives, then sit back and enjoy the show. As voices rose, I’d catch her eye. A sly smile would spread across her face. That’s when Nana would ask me to make her a highball.

That was my nana.

Being curious about that bag of keys didn’t just help me remember Nana’s cooking or humor. It reminded me of a turning point—a moment of disruption that brought Nana more fully into my life. 

We don’t always recognize these inflection points while they are happening. Sometimes it takes a set of forgotten keys, decades later, to understand how a life unfolded—and how deeply someone shaped us simply by being present.

The bag of keys helped to shape my perspective on my own history.

And a reminder that curiosity doesn’t just uncover stories—it helps us understand why the stories matter.