Selling the Estate

March 10th, 2008

Friday night I went down to Spokane to see my mom, who has been busy with her estate sale. She had an incredible turnout the first day, and when I arrived most of my dad's stuff had been sold. I did have a chance to walk through the shop and think about dad and all the memories associated with each remaining item. It surprised me how a simple object can bring back a flood of thoughts and associations. It's strange that the most important memories of our lives can be so well defined and remembered by association to trivial physical objects. Walking through dad's shop I can still see him in there, puttering around and looking for a misplaced tool in a sea of mechanical detritus. In the last few years some of my best moments with him were out in the shop or in the garden, talking about things we shared in common. I'll miss him. And, ironically, I'll miss the junk that reminds me of him.