Just after dad died, the oddest things upset me. Like hearing the faucet turn on through the shallow wall between my parents’ bathroom and my bedroom. When I was little, it signaled dad getting ready for work, and that he’d shortly come to my room to wake me. He was always the first one out the door before the sun came up, at O-Dark-Thirty as he called it. But before he did, he would tread quietly to the edge of my bed, and rub my back saying “rise and shine!” in something just stronger than a whisper.
And his truck. It was parked, back end to the garage like it always was. And every time I came around the soft curve of our street – I’d see it there as if he was home. It’s these little things, strange things, that sent me reeling, and often times still do.
After my brother cleaned the truck out, I crawled into the driver’s seat to check it over and rifle through the center console. A first aid kit, loose change, a pair of reading glasses – mundane things that collected as he went about his days. I can see him writing down instructions for a tool, or reaching for a bandaid when he’s cut his finger. But just being in there was intoxicating. It smelled like him. The smell of a long day’s work, of dirt and grease and oil and milling through a garage, buried under machines he was fixing.
Mom has already cleaned out most of his clothes, and I understand why. Walking into their shared closet every day and seeing his clothes hanging was a painful reminder that he wasn’t there. I took a number of his things – a polo shirt he wore often out to dinner, sweatshirts he spent lazy days in and, my favorite, this light sweater he wore on so many cool summer mornings when he was doing things around the yard, like vacuuming the pool with his coffee. I’ve worn it several times, closing my eyes to take myself back to those mornings when I’d walk out onto the deck and see him outside. In ways, it brings comfort, hugging the fabric tight against my chest – but always leaves me wishing my arms were holding more.
All of these things haunt in an unexpected way. But the house, for whatever reason, never has.
I am very attached to my parents’ house. Crazy attached. Sitting on the deck on a warm day watching the sun shine over a calm of grass and water is my most favorite thing. It’s where I feel happiest. And safest. Especially during all of the years I lived far away. I’ve spent my whole life growing, and learning, and screwing up in that house. I’ve sat with friends and family over the years filling it with unending laughter and tears. And as hard as it is to go back to that moment, it’s where we watched dad become something greater than his body, and leave us. That lot on Knudsen, is very much a part of me.
And being there has brought me a sense of peace – even if he’s not sitting in his favorite chair or tinkering in the garage. Because he’s touched every inch of that house. I can remember him laying grout in the kitchen or fixing a bathroom sink. So it helps to be where he’s been. Where he’s laughed, and slept, and sweat.
The other night though, I had a horrible dream that the house was burning. It woke me from one of the deepest sleeps I’d had in days with a heavy feeling as if I was losing dad all over again.
Because, truth is – even though it may just be a patchwork of tile, and carpet and plaster, it was his home.
I know the day is coming, when we’ll need to go through the rest of his stuff, and release it. That the day will come when we might sell the house. It’s just things, I know, but it feels like erasing what traces of him are left. It’s just so horribly final.
Letting go of any piece of him is hell.
A REKD GIRL 