50 Goodbye

Day 50

March 10

Dear Dad,

Yesterday was my last day here in Lima. After I cooked Sunday lunch for Randy, David and Marie, we worked together on a plan to prepare for my trip back to Chicago. The ice storm let up just enough for sunshine to break through on our efforts.

Randy readied your car, David cleaned out his van, and Nancy and Floyd drove in from Lyons to load the last twenty boxes. We drove the van-load up to Steven’s basement. For dinner we enjoyed one more meal together at your favorite Cracker Barrel. Your family and community continues to take care of me!

I gave the new Thompson Reference Bible I found in your closet to Floyd after dinner. It turns out he used to have one exactly like it. He said it was the best Bible he ever had. He loved it. However, he left it at his sister’s awhile back and something happened to it. He was thrilled to receive this gift from you.

This morning is clear and bright, good for a road trip. In a few minutes I’ll be turning the key in your Grand Marquis, pulling out of your driveway and heading home for good. But before I go, I have some important things to tell you.

I know you are in a “Far, far better place than you can ever imagine,” as you once told the nurse in dialysis. But just in case you are wondering, I want you to know that I figured out the answer to one of your questions.

Remember, sitting on the side of your bed last summer you said, “Cher, I’m ready to meet the Lord. I don’t want to question him, and I understand he has a purpose for my staying here. But I ask myself, what is that purpose? Why am I lingering?”

You lingered because we all still had much to learn, much to receive, and much to give.

So, thank you for all those nights you paced and prayed. Thank you for loving us, for loving God, for embracing every moment of your life, for your joy, and your passion.

You’ll be happy to know Steven and I are getting along well, and both of us, along with Harold and Leslie really enjoy spending time together. And, by the way, you were certainly correct to leave all the financial duties and paper work to Steve--he’s doing a great job. You’ll be glad to hear one of the first things he did was pay off your dental bill to Dr. Muscarella! No worries, Steve’s handling everything just the way you would have wanted.

I ran into Nurse Judy the other day at Topp’s across from Tom Wahl’s. It was strange seeing her out of context. She’s just as soft spoken and sweet in the grocery store as she was in your living room!

Dad, I’ll never forget the day last summer when we worked in your garden together from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. The weather was perfect, I packed us a lunch, and we set about the business of pruning, tying up vines, weeding, harvesting, raking, watering, laughing and talking. We shared a creative passion for the garden work which made the hours fly by and had us comment again and again for months after, what a great day it had been.

I can imagine the smile on your face when I tell you I’m getting to know my cousins! Norma calls often--I think in the future we will plan to visit Aunt Anne and Uncle Bob in St. Louis together. Cousin Walt left a really nice message on my cell phone last night.

Cousin Gloria told me an interesting memory of hers from when we were little girls. She said,

I remember being with you one time at the church your dad pastored in East Bloomfield. You and I were sitting in the service and I observed how you copied every move your dad made. The placement of your hand against your face...you know, in that thinking, pondering pose that your dad would do. When I commented to you about it, you said "I'm just like my dad." You were always very tied to your dad's heart. It's obvious…you loved him dearly!

As my role model, you showed me how to be receptive to God’s will, act on my convictions, love my neighbors, strive to be undaunted, find pleasure in the joy of living, and grow old with grace.

I do love you dearly. Thank you Dad.

I have to go now, it’s time to leave.

Marie packed egg salad sandwiches and brownies, just as I like, for the long drive home.

I’ll have all the clips for my hair rollers in one place now! But part of my heart will always be here with you.

With love and hope...

Your daughter,

Cheryl

P.S. I packed your last jar of canned cherries very carefully. One day when Harold and I have the country home I've always dreamed about, I'll open all the boxes I packed from your place. When I get to the cherries, we'll pour a couple bowls, take them out to the garden, and looking back at the greenhouse full of flowers in your vases, we'll raise our bowls to you. The anticipation is as sweet as I know the taste will be!

36 - 49 Day by Day

Day 36 - Day 49

February 24 - March 9

Two weeks go by…

…starting with a Sunday ride to Bristol Harbour for lunch. Not much interest in eating. Instead, I move out to a sunny patio seat near the edge of the snow covered lawn--the edge of winter, the edge of a grand hill overlooking the lake, the edge of my emotions. They spill over as I say goodbye. I cry for the words I forgot to say at the end, I cry for memories of impatience, I cry because I didn’t open father’s last jar of canned sweet cherries to share with him after the Superbowl. He suggested we do just that, to celebrate, and I said, “Oh no, I don’t want to eat the last of your favorite cherries.”

He called me in Chicago last year to inquire how to can cherries. A friend had given him several quarts. I researched "fruit canning" on the internet and called him back with instructions. Though he didn’t have official canning equipment, he made do with a large pot and old jars he had saved. I don’t know where he found the strength to lift each jar out of the boiling water with a pair of tongs. Father successfully canned about a dozen small jars of the most delicious, dark cherries. He refused to open a jar until late fall, preferring first to look at them proudly and anticipate the pleasure for a few months.

When finally opening one, the taste met all his expectations. He returned to an open jar over and over, usually finishing it off in one evening. On two of my visits he shared this treat with me.

After the Superbowl game he said, “Cher, how about we open the last jar of cherries to celebrate,” but my mind played tricks on me. I thought I should not eat half of his last prized jar, but rather I should leave it there for him to enjoy the whole jar by himself some day when I’m back in Chicago. I declined his offer.

Now I sit overlooking Naples Valley, Canandaigua Lake, and our times together--and realize I should have opened that last jar and savored every bite sharing the experience with him. He only had a few days to live. I didn’t let myself believe it, and missed the opportunity. Worse, I wonder, in my ignorance, how I could have denied him that pleasure.

This is the most difficult, of all of it.

I pull myself together and walk to the car, so my tears won't fill up the valley.

....................

Days pass, routine sets in…

…I sort, pack, give away, throw away. Tine delivers car-loads to the shop in Bloomfield, Sarah sends students to take van-loads to a dumpster, Brian and Ruth drive away truck after truck-load of furniture. Sarah and I clean. June and I clean. I have lunch with an old high school friend.

As I finish the two kitchen cabinets, I look down at the empty shelf and there sitting proudly in the middle of it, is mother’s ring--the one I lost days ago. I think she is reminding me this is her kitchen! I slip it back on my little finger next to my ring, which is next to father’s.

Melinda arrives the next weekend to help, and happily performs all the duties I left undone. She makes sure I haven’t missed anything. At one point while packing a box, I hear mother’s ring fall off my finger again. Though I can’t find it, I’m not alarmed because I know it has to be there somewhere on the rug--I’ll find it later.

We meet Steven and Leslie for lunch and learn about western New York “Garbage Plates.” Each restaurant has a different name for it, like “Messy Plate” or “Sloppy Plate.” The plate starts with a covering of macaroni salad, on top of the salad is a layer of fried potatoes, then a choice of either two hot dogs, two hamburgers, or two cheeseburgers on top of the potatoes. A squirt of horseradish mustard, then finally it's bathed with a spicy meat sauce, similar to a meat chili, but not quite. I try a plate, and over the next three days track one down in each of three more restaurants. Talk about grief looking for comfort!

I decide to tell Steven the story about losing mother’s ring, then finding it again in her cabinets, then losing it once again. I’m looking for symbolism, or messages, when Melinda settles the discussion reminding us the ring was simply too big for my finger.

Steven picks up two more boxes from father’s--I saved mother’s old music books for him. He and Leslie sing “Old Time” music, which makes up a lot of mother's collection. In the evening Leslie calls to say, as she was putting one of the boxes away, something shiny caught her eye. She looked closer and there was mother’s ring nestled in the music books! Steven and I conclude simultaneously, mother must want her ring to be at Steven’s! She got out in the last box of her belongings!

....................

Good homes are found for father’s special pieces of furniture. Friends who cherish his memory now have his piano, grandfather clock, and display cases. I visit many of his friends, leaving mementos, memories and farewells.

Unsure about two crystal decanters, Melinda suggests leaving them on the counter and sooner or later I’ll know what to do with them. On the last Friday, long-time friends of the family offer to take me to Red Lobster. When I remember the restaurant is right around the corner from the dialysis unit, I finally know what to do. Before lunch I ask them to turn at Jay’s Diner, into the complex with the Big 10 theater, and I visit father’s dialysis unit one last time. I hug father’s partners in the chairs next to his and we talk about our families. I leave one decanter with Ionie and one with Mrs. Boyd.

....................

Though I've been sleeping at David and Marie’s every night, I still leave my suitcases in father’s back room. Now everything is gone, the apartment is empty. It’s time to take the suitcases down the hall to my guest room next door, for the last two nights.

But they don’t move easily. They stay in position as I back against the wall, sliding down to the carpet into a gulf of emptiness where father’s life has been. I understand the words “gut-wrenching” for the first time in my life. Wrenched, I gasp and gasp for what I have lost.

When able to stand, I make my way to the door, by way of the kitchen. Though not there, I see his medicine on the counter in a red plastic box, I see the canister set full of ingredients for his cookies and pies, I see the toaster next to Razzelberry jam, his midnight treats by the mixer, the day's fruit ripening on a crystal tray--all in this empty space, that should not be empty.

....................

Marie takes me in.

Later we work together, rearranging her complete collection of china tea cups--half into father’s display case now in her living room, and half into her family’s antique cabinet. We laugh and delight in the beauty and story of each cup and saucer. Mother also had a collection of English Bone China teacups like Marie's. Only to look at, we never touched them.

I have the mother I need this evening, to get me through.


One more day.

35 Problem Solving

Day 35 - February 23

(Photo: "U.S.O." Girl!)

In 1972 I worked for the U.S.O. in Germany while visiting father and mother for a few months. At the time, the United States Army occupied bases throughout West Germany. As an employee for the United Services Organization, I manned an information booth in the Frankfurt Airport.

My booth perched on a raised platform where I was set up with a military phone, enabling connection to army bases throughout Europe. American personnel exiting customs in Frankfurt saw two familiar stations--the U.S. military booth with Army and Air Force personnel and my booth with the big letters U.S.O. on the front.

My job was to assist military dependents. Day after day, young wives, often with young children, arrived in a strange country after many hours on a flight, to be reunited with their husbands. However, I was there for the ones who arrived only to discover that no one was there to pick them up. To this day I don’t know why it happened so often, but communication failed, flights changed and soldiers were sent to the field…for whatever reason, they were not there. And, more than once I was shocked to hear, “My husband doesn’t even know I’m coming!”

I persisted until husbands were tracked down, calling the bases, asking for commanding officers and basically problem solving for women who were fatigued, confused, afraid, and more than happy for someone to help. If a husband was in the field, then we moved to Plan B.

I had studied German for two years in college at that point, but only remember using one German phrase successfully. The airport restrooms were attended by airport employees and it was expected for travelers to leave money on the counter at every visit. I learned to say, “Ich bin ein Flughafenarbeiter,” explaining that I too was an airport worker, so a tip was not expected each time I visited!

Every morning I walked down the little village hill to the train station with the German commuters on their way to Frankfurt. At the Frankfurt station I found the train directly to the airport. I thought I had figured out how to navigate my commute until one evening in my second week of work.

Father loved to tell the story of how I boarded the train to Wirtheim which would have taken me home. However, unknowingly, I had really boarded the train to Wertheim--a city I didn’t even know existed! The difference in the “i” and the “e” eluded me.

I rode for the usual thirty minutes and then noticed the ride was becoming longer and longer. After an hour I started to ask around, “Is this the train to Wirtheim?” in my school-girl German.

Each time I asked, I received the same answer, “Ja, Wertheim!” It sounded like Wirtheim to me! I continued to ride, wondering how the thirty-minute commute to father and mother’s village could be turning into two hours.

Not knowing what else to do, I rode all he way to Wertheim--three hours from their home--and when I arrived, discovered I did not have Deutschmarks to pay for a return trip back home. It was late at night by then and no currency exchanges were open. Thank God a kind soul took pity on me and let me trade with him, U.S. dollars for German currency!

Today cousin Nancy and her husband Floyd are coming to help. Floyd worked all night Friday, but they arrive Saturday mid-morning to help with the kitchen. They were stationed in Germany years ago, and were able to spend time with mother and father, as well as take advantage of any free time they had to travel throughout Europe.

While Floyd helps pack china and glasses, Nancy attacks the cabinets. We reminisce about our days in Germany. We pack the china I purchased as a Christmas present for mother at the Rhein-Main Air Force base with the help of an MP I met at my U.S.O. booth. We chat about all the trips to outlet stores throughout Germany as we pack so many collections of mugs, plates, candles…

They tell about one outlet where large crates of china plates were reduced to a ridiculously low price. The Americans bought them up--such a bargain! The Germans purchased them for a celebration in which they needed a lot of plates--to break!

Floyd’s witty remarks keep us laughing while he does the heavy lifting and helps me keep straight--these items in a box for Matt, these in a box for Melinda... Nancy tackles shelf after shelf which I can not bear to approach. She sorts mother’s multi-cabinet Tupperware collection, finding a lid for each container--more than my small dose of concentration could possibly accomplish. By the time we are finished, only two cabinets remain.

This space where family came together daily, nourished each other daily, where stories of father and mother’s lives unfold as we pick up a dish, coffee pot, French fry maker, egg cup, pie pan…too many memories abound to do this alone.

In the midst of my fatigue, confusion and fears, they persist till the job is done. We finish off our day at Cracker Barrel remembering father’s joy at their last meal there with him.

Nancy and Floyd are my U.S.O. today!

34 "Mercury is the source of words such as merchandise, merchant and merciful."

Day 34 - February 22

In my most early years, as a toddler and pre-schooler, at the end of each day father walked through our front door, turned to the hooks on his right to hang his overcoat, and placed his dress hat on the shelf above. Then he was ours for the evening.

Mother prepared dinner in the narrow kitchen above a coal furnace. Outside the kitchen door a huge opening loomed for coal deliveries. Red and white metal cabinets surrounded her. Underneath the sink, a silver emblem identified the manufacturer--some kind of winged creature, similar to the Roman god Mercury. At the other end of the kitchen our fifties dinette set lined the left wall while the washer and dryer filled up the right.

After dinner I tossed the green silky throw pillow on the living room floor. This was the sign for our play to begin. Father joined me for all manner of giggling and wrestling. We laughed so hard we cried, every night.

While mother washed the dishes, he asked about my day and I played records for him. My 45’s and 78’s were quite an eclectic collection--Red River Valley, Love is a Many Splendored Thing, The Nutcracker Suite, You Are My Sunshine, The Yellow Rose of Texas and Chicken Little’s, The Sky is Falling, The Sky is Falling!

Mother, barely twenty years old at the time, made her way through day after day, finding young housewife things to do. She cooked and baked, laundered and ironed. She read McCall’s magazines and the Reader’s Digest in her stuffed yellow rocker. While she read I set up my record player in her bedroom.

One day she decided to teach me to iron father’s white handkerchiefs, each one embroidered with a fancy letter “G.” I insisted on ironing them from then on. My favorite part was opening his cavernous dresser drawer and depositing the carefully pressed and folded little piles in their place.

Here I am at the other end of the story. Now I’m opening drawers and closet doors, deciding what happens next. I plan to pass father’s clothing on to a good will shop. I choose a matching tie for every one of his many dress shirts, arrange each tie around the neck of each shirt and slip each arrangement into a plastic garment bag.

I save his suits for visiting ministers from Haiti and three sport coats for me to wear around the house when I’m chilled.

Careful piles fill the room. Slowing down, it’s no light task, to observe the trappings of father’s distinction in piles all around.

Elvis sings, It is no secret, what God can do. What he’s done for others, He’ll do for you…

Tine comes to the door.

“I’m ready to help. Do you want me to take all of this out to my car? I can drive it to our Community Support Shoppe in Bloomfield for you.”

Tine takes care of it all--several car loads over the next few days.

The shop is run by New Hope Fellowship Church. The name has changed, but New Hope is the church father founded along Route 5 & 20 on the edge of East Bloomfield. I remember as a grade school student, whenever we drove by the old church building which had been converted to a pottery shop, father was concerned that it wasn’t a house of worship. Eventually he found a way, with community support, to purchase the building and open it as the Berean Gospel Church.

The rest is history and now his belongings will be taken care of by the church’s members who will make sure they are used as a blessing to members of the community at large.

It’s all history now.

…except for the part that still lives in me

…and keeps me writing

…so my sky won’t fall.

33 Keep it Simple

Day 33- February 21

The first night Sarah joined me for dinner she volunteered to help after dessert. We found a hammer, then it all came down--calendars, mirrors, clocks, ceramic plates, wooden plaques, wax hangings, straw hangings, woven hangings--purposely positioned for twenty years defining the boundaries of this personal space…wall by wall. She used the hammer claw to remove every nail and picture hanger in father’s home.

The next night I walked down the hall to eat dinner with David and Marie, returning in the evening to putter and pack at father’s. They gave me a key to their home. When I tired, late into the night, I returned to sleep in their guest room--my pattern for twenty-one days.

Tonight Sarah comes over again. We eat leftovers and look for an evening project, settling on a little iron wall hanger. Ornate, Italian, with five tiny hooks, mother used it to display European pot holders over the stove. Through the years a very thick grease build-up has caked in all the decorative creases. Remembering her own mother’s advice, Sarah looks for an old tooth brush and white toothpaste. We find both and she proceeds to sit, methodically scrubbing away while we talk. Father would have applauded our diligence.

I ask Sarah if she would like to choose a vase to take with her. We talk about her sister and she picks one out for her too. Last year I arrived from Chicago one May day as father’s eighty-second birthday was approaching. He already had plans in motion. Sarah and Rebekah were baking him their specialty cheese cake with homemade chocolate sauce and fresh strawberries, and father wanted to have an Open House.

“Cher, we’ll keep it simple. We’ll have cheesecake and just tell a few friends they can stop by for a piece any time on my birthday. Well, maybe I’ll make my pineapple cake with the cream cheese frosting too. What would you like to make?”

He began to go down the list calling friend after friend. At one point I counted up and realized he’d talked to almost forty people so far, and he was far from finished. “Dad, I think we are going to need more food!”

When the day arrived we not only had cheesecake and pineapple cake, but we also baked two apple pies, blueberry squares and a chocolate cream pie! Friends filled his rooms from their early lunch breaks until dinnertime. He held court on the living room sofa while Sarah, Rebekah and I served pie and cake on his china and crystal. June washed dishes half way through so we could start over.

We kept it simple, if by simple one means taking care to make sure every friend and guest feels specially treated and loved. What better way to celebrate his birthday than to allow him this pleasure.

In the summer between my visits, along with his neighbors, Sarah and her friend, Bethany, maintained father’s garden for him. They weeded, watered and harvested. I arrived to finish the other gardening chores. Father raked straight lines in the soil between each row of the faithfully weeded vegetables. “Cher, I think this is the best garden yet, don’t you?”

He taught us by example to reach out boldly, to care and love unconditionally, and to find pleasure in the joy of living.

The toothpaste is doing it’s job. We scrub till iron roses from Italy shine clearly above each hook.

We share moments together in his space, caring for his memory, grateful for what we have learned.

32 Our Best

Day 32 - February 20




Steven is taking care of father’s desk contents, office closet, books, stamps, coins, Hummels. We exchange queries: Does this look important? Is that something you want? Where do you think I’ll find a key for this?

During the years when father walked daily, he recorded each mile in little green record books. Every time he filled his car with gas, he entered data in spiral notebooks--mileage, gallons purchased, price. Eighteen years on the mission field, he listed every single expenditure, every single contribution--all monies in and out faithfully recorded down to the penny. Boxes of this paperwork filled spare closets. Add to that, every letter, card, newsletter, bill invoice, bank statement, receipt, you-name-it piece of paper that entered his life, he saved.

I stand at the kitchen counter, a small spoon in hand, tapping gently against the rims of crystal pieces. I love the different tones and the sensitive quality variations. Some are muted chimes, others ring like bells--one bell sings like a breathtaking solo in an Italian monastery on a hill overlooking a bay.

I begin to pack it in boxes. There is no room to accommodate this crystal collection in my home. Yet, it’s beauty is tangible, and I decide I want this tangible expression in my life.

I know it’s idealistic. Our family was no more perfect than the next. Our love no more unflawed than the next. But in spite of any of their mistakes, I know mother and father did the best they could, given who they were and what they knew, given the times they lived in, their milieu, their role models and the trials of their own childhoods.

The crystal posed from behind glass display doors, and hid in cabinet recesses most of the time. But it had its moments--a vase full of flowers transforming the dining table and tall water goblets sparkling at the head of each plate for a dinner full of guests.

When I stayed with father each month these last two years I tried my best to create meals he could eat, but would also enjoy. In my own home we often grab whatever plate and glass is available, and unless guests are present, we proceed with our meals quite unceremoniously. However, remembering mother’s attention to detail and father’s appreciation for it, I set a careful table for our times together.

I made a decision without consulting him. It was time to use the crystal! Mashed potatoes on the menu? They filled up a crystal bowl. Carrots, green beans? Two more crystal bowls. Dr. Pepper? Crystal goblets. Postum with cream and sugar? They came to the table on a crystal tray. M & M’s on an end table? In a crystal candy dish. Cough drops? Crystal!

Every time I turned around, I found another use for these delicate, melodious pieces. I picked wild flowers along the edge of Lima’s country roads--into the crystal.

I thought at first he would object. For so many years it had only come out on special occasions. Instead, he smiled. Even though mother would never have used it with such reckless abandon, it reminded him of her. He saw her like crystal--the beautiful girl he married, her lovely singing voice, her fine qualities, their many years of devotion to each other.

One of the boxes of paper in father’s closet is full of letters he and mother wrote back and forth the year before they married. I save the whole box, but only open one letter, reading the closing.

...Well, honey, I’m sure that by the tone of this letter you know that I love you and miss you very much--and “the half has never yet been told.” I’m sorry I must close now. So long Ruth. I’ll try to be back soon.

With my fervent love for you,

Chet

Along with these letters, I will transport ten boxes of crystal to Chicago, and while they may hide away in a storage closet for some time, I know the day will come when there will be a place for them. I will start by scattering a few pieces throughout the condo--a crystal tray for the TV remote, another one for a jar of honey, a vase for the guest room, a bowl for whatever I choose to put in it!

The best of what my family was and is--our hope, our fine qualities, our abiding love--will sparkle and brighten our everyday lives in the midst of our chaos and imperfections.

31 Piece by Piece

Day 31 - Feb. 19

















I squeeze room on the kitchen table between the photographs, for my coffee and notebook. Will it be difficult to find addresses for each cousin who attended the funeral? We never lived near extended family.

I remember a few scattered visits from my childhood.

Father’s cousin, Theo, married an Italian who made his own pasta. I remember watching in awe as Leonard cranked out the long spaghetti noodles on the kitchen counter. I played with their daughter, Marilyn, and other cousins in their back family room or down in the basement. No one was allowed in the living room…the lights were never turned on, we were told not to walk through it, the room was being reserved. What a contrast to the reckless abandon of pillow fights with couch cushions in the family room, boxes of old clothes and jewelry strung out all over the basement in our fantasy play, or the crescendo of warm laughter and love in the kitchen where such wonderful Polish and Italian fare was created and relished by this chorus of family!

Grandmother’s home also had a living room in reserve, darkened and unused. A front door opened into the dining room, mainly a walk-through on the way to her kitchen. Uncle Simon, one of father’s oldest brothers, however, did use this dining room. Every evening after work he rested in an easy chair by the window, his tiny respite on earth. I learned many years later, he was one of the brothers who suffered very hard times in the mines as a young teen. What I knew as a child was sitting on his lap to say goodbye before our road trip back to Rochester, he always found a handful of change in his pockets to place in my hand--his Polish Uncle farewell. He died in his sleep one night in the bedroom he and three brothers had shared growing up.

I have a vague recollection of Aunt Ethel, the oldest sister, sitting in a corner of the kitchen warmed by the wood-burning stove. She’s the one who took father with her on Sunday morning to a Pentecostal service in the next little town. Grandmother, directly from Poland, was Roman Catholic. The catholic church loomed large on a corner down the next block from their home. I heard stories of Polish women on Good Friday, encircling the huge structure on their knees. They prayed and progressed step by step, knees on cinders, bleeding, all the way around the church. Father, the last of twelve children, was to be the priest in the family.

Ethel bundled up nine year-old Chester after mass for the couple mile walk to the church she’d discovered--a church proclaiming the message of God’s love free to anyone who accepts His son, Christ, into his or her life--no penance to pay and plenty of joyful praise in that hour of thanks! Father never wavered from those days forward in his love and dedication to this God of grace, mercy and love. Grandmother told him he must attend mass until he completed his confirmation at age twelve.

He recounts that morning after the confirmation, running all the way to church and never looking back! One by one over the years, most of the brothers and sisters, and finally grandmother joined in.

“David, do you know where I can find a few little boxes? I’d like to put together some items to send to my cousins who attended Dad’s funeral.” Fifteen minutes later David arrives with an armload of perfectly sized boxes, the exact number I need. I arrange them side by side in father’s living room, write a card for each cousin and enclose the photographs hand-picked the day before.

I have not yet sorted, packed, or thrown away any of father’s possessions. I know it’s time to get started if I’m going to complete this project in two weeks time.

Opening the German cabinet doors and glass display cases, I reach in to father’s life. But for today, it is only to hold it, piece by piece, as I pass it to each cousin’s box. I pass it to the children of his brothers and sisters, back to his family, desiring to somehow connect them with his loving spirit through these material possessions he touched.

After calling hours, the night before father’s funeral, Gloria and Norma noticed a photograph on father’s kitchen wall. I had framed a photo Uncle Bob blew up from a snapshot. The family is posed in grandmother’s reserved living room, the lights on full. Together we looked up at each of our parents, early in their marriages, the men standing behind their wives, all gathered around grandmother.

Though we never lived near each other, and I barely know these cousins, I discovered it was easy to find each of their addresses after all. I simply opened father’s little hand-written address book. There alphabetically, some with married last names I was unaware of, in his miniscule hand writing father had recorded complete, accurate and up-to-date addresses and phone numbers for each one.

I begin to fill the hole he has left in my life, with these connections.

“Thanks, Dad, for the roadmap.”

Perhaps we cousins are like an unused, darkened living room. A special place in the house, we've been held in reserve, and now the lights are on full.

30 Lead Me, Guide Me

Day 30 - February 18



Melinda’s back in school, Matt and Harold Martin are working. Harold left for Chicago.


Marie and David are cleaning out the vacant apartment across the hall. Cousins have long since departed.


I walk through father’s door, turn on Elvis Presley’s gospel CD,

…There will be peace in the val-ley for me-e-e, some day…

I sit on the blue couch facing a cabinet full of dusty Hummels,
and wait.


I walk to the kitchen, make a cup of International Coffee instant gratification and return to my seat. Music books stand on the piano. Scrapbooks of father and mother’s life together perch to my right. Racks of CDs rest on their turntables.


Elvis sings,

…I am tired and I need Thy strength and power

to guide me over my darkest hour.

Lord just open my eyes that I may see,

lead me oh Lord, won’t you lead me…

and I wait.


Even the phone is quiet. No one calls father’s home now.

…over my darkest hour…


I call father’s friend, Sarah, “Would you like to have diner with me tonight? Oh, yes, I’m fine. Good, I’ll see you then.”


The quiet returns.


I open drawers of pictures, dumping hundreds of glimpses into a lifetime on the table. I pick up each one, searching--the faces, the backgrounds, the time, year, situation, event. I wonder who took each picture, who will want each picture. I sort one pile of photos instinctively, for no particular reason, simply knowing I must save them. I create a shopping bag full for Steven.


Then I choose two or three for each cousin…


Elvis is singing,

…oh I wish I was in Dixie, away, away…


I’m in Dixie, where I was born. Old times are not forgotten.


The pitch rises, the tempo slows. Elvis deliberately emphasizes,

…Glo--ry, Glor-y, Halleluiah

His truth is marching on…


Then, words I never noticed before, catch me as I stand by the sink filling a crystal vase with water, tidying father’s kitchen, moving on…


…So hush little baby,

don’t you cry.

You know your Daddy’s bound to die.

But all my trials Lord, will soon be over…


My goal is to have father’s apartment completely cleaned out in two weeks. I will use the third week for tying up loose ends and visiting his friends for last.


For the next two weeks I'll begin my day each morning with instant International Coffee and Elvis.

...I come to the garden alone,

while the dew is still on the roses.

And the voice I hear, falling on my ear...

The two-CD set plays all morning long.

29 Leftovers--Flowers, Food and a Dream

Day 29 - February 17

Things to do on the day after a funeral:

· Ask sister in-law to create multiple smaller flower arrangements from the bountiful array of flower baskets and bouquets sent to the funeral home and memorial service. Use up all the generic florist vases under the cabinet and in the closets.

· Have them delivered to nursing homes and hospitals.

· Grab some butter, honey, brown sugar and one can of every fruit in loved one’s kitchen cabinets. Also find raisins, cloves, an apple, and an orange from the refrigerator.

· Take the ham donated by friends of the family, throw all the fruit, sugar, honey and raisins in the pan around it, coat it with a butter-honey-brown sugar mixture and score the fat in a diamond design. Ask son’s girlfriend who doesn't cook to place a clove in the corner of each diamond.

· Bake and serve for lunch with leftovers, to the amazement of family members who observe the process.

· Take a flower arrangement to the door of each friend who helped the family make it through the week.

· If loved one left the office furniture and books at a place of employment to a friend, remove personal items and call friend.

· Since vases are important while creating flower arrangements, notice loved one’s incredible vase collection from around the world and pack them away immediately to preserve--especially if loved one dreamed of having a country home with an attached green house.

· Begin to imagine fulfilling that dream. Envision the vases standing at attention on an upper shelf encircling the green house.

· If executor of estate says loved one wanted one last dinner at Olive Garden for family on his credit card, enjoy one last dinner at Olive Garden!

· If spouse must depart for airport to return to work, appreciate good-bye hug--it will have to last for twenty-one days.