The van is an old telephone van, which has sat, unused, and unclean, in the garage for over 5 years. My husband has never wanted to sell this relic of our past, but has neglected it for many years.
“What is it?” I ask, frustrated, distracted, and not at all interested.
“I don’t know,” says my ten year old, “I think it was something of pa’s.”
My hands stop in mid air, as I turn, wide eyed to stare at my son.
“Pa? My daddy?”
“Yeah, it’s a box.”
My heart leaps into my throat, my hands coming down to rest on my mouse pad. I swallow, fight back sudden, unwanted, tears.
“Bring it to me.”
The box is small. It is perhaps 12 inches wide, by 12 inches long, by 8 inches deep. Small. Yet, inside are many things waiting to tear my heart out.
My father has been dead for almost 5 years. He died suddenly when I was five months pregnant with my last son. I have begun, in recent months, to believe that I can put my grief behind me, to place my grief, and my father, in a memory compartment where neither pain nor dust can reach.
It doesn’t work, I know, because when I opened that box pain seared my mind.
In daddy’s box I found trivial things, those small items of life that are unnecessary and inconsequential. I found receipts for gas, and a few for cigarettes. I found receipts from Wal-Mart and receipts for a broken water pump on a van that no longer belongs to anyone in my family. I find one cuff link, and the tip for his cigar. I find unopened Pepcid AC tablets, and a mentholated cough drop. I find his lucky rabbit’s foot, which, now, is mostly bone with tiny amount of fur still clinging. I find two checks that have never and will never be cashed, and I find a drawing.
This last tears at my heart, and starts the warm slow tears down my face.
Daddy loved to draw. He was no professional, but, with training could have been. He liked to draw silly characters and cartoons, and he loved to draw on anything he could reach. Napkins, paper, receipts, anything. This drawing is on an old, unused file folder, and it is his rendition of Mickey Mouse. I am saddened when I see the receipts because I realize that he has gone about his life, up until the moment, not realizing that he will be gone. Not realizing that the batteries he bought on the 9th of January will outlive him after he passes on January 12th.
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