Sunday Ruminations

My parents' gravesite.

The house, for sale then and now sold where, for 60+ years, my family existed. It runs in our veins, it seems larger than life. And it will soon be forbidden to visit. I freely admit: I am having a very, very difficult time handling that aspect. This house will no longer be mine to visit or claim. At best, in the future, I could drive by. But what once was so familiar, what was once so comforting, was once so assumed -- will soon be occupied by Strangers. Strangers. Do you understand? Can they understand? Every memory I have of growing up -- I have it THERE.

I gave my parents a kitten from a cat I owned when I was first married, in 1982. They named their cat Scooter. Though I customarily got along famously with any and all cats, that cat hated my ass and I hated it back as well. It would never relinquish any opportunity to scratch me, and I never relinquished a chance to kick it or slap it. This mat still exists on the front of my parents' house, but only for a few more days.

They loved their cats. They had Pixie, a Lynx Point mix -- and my mother won the 1964 award for Best Household Pet at the Sacramento Cat Fanciers Association -- and a trophy -- behind Pixie. Who was then killed a short time later by a local Labrador Retriever named Pat whom I vowed to kill by meat tainted with rat poison. It barked and barked and barked. It later died.

When Scooter died, my father vowed he would never have another cat. He said it was because the cat was a pain-in-the-ass. In truth, it was because he loved the cat too much and didn't want to experience more death. He'd had enough. He'd invested too much of himself in an animal and he found that issue too painful. I could never convince him otherwise. He rumbled around in his house, after my mother's passing on May 14th of 2002, entirely alone. By his own choosing. I could never convince him otherwise.

Last week, the Estate Sellers entered my life. I don't blame them; they have a job to do and they do it wonderfully, precisely, considerably, professionally, tactfully, sensitively. They are and have been eminently wonderful. Here is the dispassionate photo of a sellers table displayed in MY living room in MY house. My first gut response: GET THE FUCK OUT. YOU DON'T BELONG HERE. Your PRESENCE is an abomination! But then I had to remember: not my house. Not for much longer. Calm the hell down.

It is my job to get over the transition of my family's house to another's house. But I will be the first to admit that this transition, amongst other familial issues, is keeping me up nights. I've not been sleeping much for the past few months, since February 11th.

Most days I purposely try to avoid specific thinking. I try to embrace uninvolved problems, issues, pursuits, tasks.

But at night, when the sun recedes, I am not so quite effective. I may wake at 2 or 3 am, then try not to disturb my wife. But my mind refuses to shut down, and still refuses. At night. In the dark. When it may wander where it does and is not so otherwise occupied.

I am old. I am rather old. And this should not, theoretically, shatter nor disturb my advanced world. But it still manages to do so, to my very own personal and sighing chagrin.

Here is my father's car in front of my cabin, last night. I will have to sell this car. It's a great car with few miles but that's not the point. It's another issue and aspect with which I must deal and put aside. I just want to drive it and remember.

I have boxes and boxes and boxes of my parents' items in my house. I don't have a garage so these boxes are littered all over my first floor. I will be eliminating some of my very own possessions so that I can accommodate theirs.

But I keep asking and postulating: shouldn't I just give it all up? After all, they're just things?

And more importantly, this question: what is the true cost of memories?

BZ