Shoes, Ships, and Sealing Wax

The story

After my grandmother died, it fell to my father to clean out and sell her house. This had been the family home for some fifty years, and the family, to put it mildly, were pack rats.

My grandfather had been one of those guys who couldn't stand to see something interesting thrown away, regardless of whether or not it worked. He could always fix it. We attributed my grandmother's need to save with her having lived through the Depression. They never got rid of a book or magazine, because you might want to read it again. And you couldn't throw away a shopping bag, someday you might need to carry something.

The cleanup took nine months. We filled dumpsters, Goodwill vans, and our own basements with stuff from the house. It was an emotional job, too...selling the house was depressing. Everything was laden with memories. The trouble was the volume.

The day before settlement my father and I were still trying to get the house emptied. It was like a Stephen King story...we'd think we were done, and the house would somehow generate more stuff in an evil plot to hold us there forever. We were into the evening when my dad, on his way out of the basement, noticed another box under the stairs.

I should mention that my dad is a pretty mellow guy most of the time, and he has a very good sense of humor. But at this point he was losing his patience. He needed both hands to drag this box out into the utility room, and we looked inside.

Like most of the boxes we'd unearthed, it wasn't labeled, and the contents were completely random. We were afraid to throw anything away without examination, because who knew...we might have stumbled across old stock certificates that held a forgotten fortune. Or it might have been a box of sales flyers from 1956, but we needed to look.

My father groaned. "What the hell are we supposed to do with all this?" He picked up two framed pictures that were near the top, a black and white photograph of some men and a print of the Sacred Heart. "I mean...I don't even know who these people are!"

Looking over his shoulder, I pointed to the photograph and said "Well, I dunno about those guys, but..." I pointed to the Sacred Heart..."I'm pretty sure that's Jesus."

He looked at me.

He said "Nic. I. Need. Your. Help."

(His lips said "Nic, I need your help." His eyes said "Would you like to go meet Jesus?")

I can't remember what we did with the box. I remember talking to my brother (who was living in Chicago at the time, and missed the whole housecleaning experience). I told him about the exchange. "Dad didn't laugh?" he asked, amazed.

Dad laughs about it now, but it's been six years.

I was chatting with my mother the other day. She was bemoaning the fact that she has trouble with setting up the drying rack in the laundry room because there is so much crap in the basement. "Your father," she said, "has filled up all the space under the stairs with God knows what."

And it hit me. He's filling their basement with revenge.

Posted by Nic at May 16, 2005 06:19 AM