De-clutter. De-tchotchke. These are the two D's that define my day, prompted by the most dreaded double D of all. Dad's death. There's a condo to deal with now. A condo full of stuff, stuff and more stuff. And, oy gevalt, a storage bin, too. How strange to be going through my dad's drawers. I feel like a little kid snooping in places I shouldn't go. To lessen the guilt, I talk to him the whole time. "Oh, Daddy, look what I found. Your wings. So tarnished." The things I find cool now must've lost their luster to him. "What's with all the keys, Daddy?" Bags and bags of keys and tiny locks. "I'm tossing these," I announced. "They're history." And what about the calendars, the months-at-a-glance from 1994 - 2004. Appointments. Lunches at the Friars Club. Lunches at Factor's. Weekly lunches with Dan. Fun nights out with my mom. Dinner with Frank and Dorothy. Dinner with Arthur and Gwen. Dinner with Alfred and Paula. And then, after the spouses departed for parts unknown, dinner with Paula. Life captured in scribbles. Until he shifted it all to the computer. "Wait," he'd say, "let me check the calendar." "Sorry, Daddy, these are adios," I said, dumping the vinyl books in the shopping cart I borrowed from the garage.
After months of difficult decisions, I have more decisions to make. What to do with all his scripts? Donate to the Writer's Guild? Done. What to do with all the books? Keep some. Donate others. What to do with his old tuxedo? The wall of family photos? The endless knick- knacks? The art work, the furniture, the overwhelming everything? Well, there's a storage locker on Van Nuys waiting to be filled. Thank God I'm not in this alone. My brother John spends hours there, sorting through clothes, making piles of what to keep and what to give away. He's emptied the bathroom cabinets and hall closet. Together, we've hardly made a dent. Today, we're going over to do more. Hubby, too. He took the day off to help.
We used to say, "I'm going to Dad's." "See you at Dad's." Now we just say the condo. He doesn't live there anymore.
It's a sad and tough job. This is why I tossed all my stuff and only own kept 2 bar stools. One for each kid.
ReplyDeleteI applaud your de-cluttering skills, Candice. Smart girl. This is a nightmare. I start reading old letters I wrote my folks when I lived in England and lose hours of valuable de-cluttering time.
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