Remembering

It's been a good long while since I've blogged here. A lot of water has slipped under the bridge and downstream... In a nutshell, my father died, and then my brother died. I am moving to Dallas in a few days... I am sorting, packing, decluttering and planning my new life.

I find that I'm remembering a lot of the past, relishing it, holding it close. These memories are wonderful, and I find myself saying to people, "Or as my mother always said..." or "That reminds me of what my dad used to say." I know I'm boring, but I don't care. I am now one of those people who says the quirky, silly stuff that a dead parent used to say, and is boring.

However, just now, in the kitchen, I decided to drink yet another glass of water (hello, Weight Watchers), and I made a discovery.

I got out a pretty glass, I dug my hand into the icemaker bin... and I was suddenly awash with memories of my dad, putting ice in a glass there in the kitchen with its orange countertops and aqua fridge (ah, the 70s!). I think it may have been his favorite sound: ice in a glass with scotch over it, or perhaps a gin and tonic. Even iced tea with a sprig of fresh mint (the taste for which I did not inherit from him). He loved his ice... I stood there in the kitchen, my hands getting cold, and almost heard his "ahhhhh!"

I snapped back to the present – to my current dilemma which is reducing the household goods to a manageable AND affordable level, in poundage, in quantity and in dollars. The estimate I got this morning was eye-popping, and made me stop loving all my heavy things quite so much.

Can I part with the piano? the sofa that was theirs, which needs a major overhaul? the dresser that held my parents' socks and underwear for more than 40 years? I already have a dresser I love. All afternoon today, I've been agonizing over these items, weighing the emotional value v. the cash value/cost of moving them.

That tinkle of ice cut right through my consternation. Moving a piece of furniture that requires upholstering, tuning, dusting, maintaining is unnecessary waste of energy. I have photographs of the sofa and piano. I can close my eyes and feel them beneath me. If need be, I can remove a swatch of fabric from the slipcover. Maybe I'll keep the piano bench? and my music. (I know all of two songs and haven't yet taken lessons as I said I would. Wonder Boy as well shows little interest in piano lessons.)

Why would I expend so much energy to hold my parents so close, when they haunt me freely in the simplest ways – merely the tinkle of an ice cube, a piece of music, a remembered word, joke or phrase, a fabric texture, a color, the feel of a watch on my wrist.

If our name was Rockefeller, I might feel differently and the things might have more value. But their furniture was so them – simple and solid workaday items, bought with saved-up money, built to last. I've already let go of the kitchen table we used since 1964. On the weekend after it was donated to charity, I imagined the family who walked into the thrift store and saw it. The dad knew it would fit in the dining room, the mom imagined how nice her ham would look at Easter, and the price tag was just right.

I can do the same with this old piano. There will be a music class, a Sunday school or a family who will enjoy the piano. Someone else's socks and underwear will rest in the dresser. It's not the piano I will miss – it is his music, but that died in 1994 with his stroke, so I'm used to missing it.

I am not used to missing the people, however. All three of them. I miss them so much that I cannot even articulate it, which is why I bother with mementos, old clothes and furniture (and haven't been blogging much).

But my grief should not, cannot be heavy right now. I know my dad would say something colorful if he knew that I contemplated, even for a minute, paying to move that "junk" back to Texas. In fact, as the moving company estimator sat at my kitchen table today and calculated up how much cash I'll need, my dad spoke to me. Let me bore you for a moment.

As my dad always said, "When you're going on a trip, always HALVE the luggage and DOUBLE the cash."

He did like cash. And ice.