In Dad’s final days, we recorded some audio clips that will keep him close to us and help us process this consuming grief we are feeling. My brother and I spent countless hours by his side as he reluctantly shifted his weight from this world to Heaven to be with our mother again, a lot like a kid being dropped off for summer camp who wants to go but keeps coming back for one more reassuring hug before being able to go pick a bunk. His words here are powerful reminders to do things while we still can.
There are lessons on this side in the moment of hearing Dad’s recorded words spoken, but there are the realities of this on the other side, once a person has left this world, in seeing so many things that did not get finished. We see it in the unfinished projects, the bookmarks, the tasks, the notes, and the paperwork. My brother stood in the shed last weekend and held up an ornate wooden spindle: for the stair rail we were going to refinish back in the 1980s, he explained. It struck me in a visual way when I walked in his kitchen and saw the Lazy Susan still on the counter, covered in shot glasses that were filled with his medicine doses. That’s how he organized his medicines for the week. I gave it a spin and watched it whirl, then slow, then stop.
Then, I discarded each pill and stacked the glasses in the box I was packing to be donated, wondering where each would land beyond its purpose here in the grand scheme of their own lives as medicine cups before I moved on to the next counter and the cabinet after that and the shelves after that.
How quickly a life shuts down and the physical space once occupied becomes a hollow cavity. A dumpster. A donation box. An estate sale. A few memorable pieces tucked into the folds of our own homes as reminders that what matters truly are the memories – – not the stuff.
no one leaves this world
feeling like they’re finished with
all that needs doing
Common Threads 