A few months after my dad left this earth, his wife had a garage sale to downsize his items. Being the thoughtful person that she is, she waited until all his children had a chance to look through everything and make sure there wasn’t anything we wanted to keep. I already knew I didn’t want to keep anything, but I flew home to see my family and help as needed. As I surveyed shelves lined with books and corners stacked with boxes, I felt overwhelmed.
I’ve personally never been one to hold on to memorabilia, my brain gets too cluttered. In my moves and travels, I’ve frequently downsized my belongings to two suitcases. And yet, as I found myself looking through all the items he had saved, I found myself reconsidering my minimalistic resolve.
His sentimentality showed in what he chose to save, and as I looked at each item it brought back memories. The crackled, dry leather gloves he used to roughhouse our Border Collie with. He had taught her to only play when the gloves were on his hands. The minute he brought them out she leapt to attention and they locked eyes, both poised and ready to attack.
The small metal sandbox shovel he used to lecture us about not leaving out in the rain because they don't make things like this in the US anymore.
Various stacks of wood against the walls brought back memories of hours spent unloading and stacking wood with him as he marveled at it’s grain and smell. These cedar boards were going to be perfect for his next project. What project exactly, we weren’t sure, but he could never turn down a good sale on wood. We spent the next several years re-stacking the boards in new piles with different orientations to prevent warping while we waited for the perfect project to reveal itself.
And then there was the set of outdoor humor books he read to us around the campfire, making funny voices until we were crying from laughter.
I found myself fighting the urge to stuff everything in my bag and take it all with me. It was hard to wrap my mind around the fact that somebody who was such a large part of my life could just... cease to exist. It felt like somewhere in this world, there must be a 5’ 8" sucking black hole of empty space. The space he used to take up couldn’t just be filled in with air, the only thing that could fill up his space was him, and without him there, there must be a sucking void somewhere. That was the only logical conclusion I could come to.
I looked at the small wooden box that supposedly contained my dad. I wanted to yell "No. That's not my dad. That's a box. My dad is a moving, breathing, dynamic creature." I felt a weird disassociation from the box of ashes.
That is not my dad.
That is a box.
It means nothing to me.
Nothing.
It was a beautiful box, to be sure. My dad’s brother, a professional woodworker, had crafted the box from some of the cedar in my dad’s workshop. Deep, rich stain complemented the grain of the wood, the corners carved with ornate designs and polished to perfection.
It was beautiful, but I could not feel emotions for the box.
It was hard, cold, and lifeless. It was not my dad.
The closest thing that felt like my dad were his things. His childhood tinker toys he secretly hoped we would one day discover the same love as he had for them as a child. The yellow frisbee he would send flying down the beach during family camping trips. More than once, a stranger returning his frisbees found themselves pulled into an impromptu game. The favorite shirt with red trim that he wore as he played his variation of hot potato: juggling three foil wrapped potatoes, fresh out of the oven. These tangible items reminded me of the actions, words, and expressions that made him who he is. Was?
And then there were the photos. In addition to the boxes of physical photos and film, there was a folder on a hard drive of movies and photos. In addition to saving things, my dad saved moments through countless photos and videos.
In the nights he couldn't sleep, he had spent hours scanning in all the photos to digitize our family memories he had extensively captured over the past 30 years, along with a collection of photos saved from facebook. It was odd, because he had never liked a photo or anything I posted to facebook, but he had taken the time to save and label photos off my facebook. I found it touching he kept meticulous records of my life even when we weren't talking as much. In some cases, it was less touching. Albums with captions such as “Nefarious People” gave insight into his feelings when he was experiencing his moods. There was a photo of myself in the nefarious album, along with some of my other siblings. I had to laugh. In a way, it made me feel better. It helped me sympathize with him, and I could see he was living in a world of pain and truly thought everyone was out to get him. It became painfully clear he was too absorbed in his own emotions to realize how much pain he had caused others.
The only people who intimately understood what my father was like during my childhood were my own brothers and sisters. Shortly before he passed, one of them told me they asked him why he had done something particularly traumatizing. My father had said he didn’t really remember doing that, he only remembered he was really upset about XYZ at the time. Not remember? How could he not remember something seared into the scar tissue of our brains?
For all the memories he had so carefully saved, he had liberally discarded most of the memories that had left the deepest impact on us.
In the years following, I occasionally found myself opening my box of mementos I saved from the garage sale. It was hard to open that box, without also knocking open the box of discarded memories. I had tucked this box carefully into the shadows of my brain, but as I grew older the streaks of light grew longer, illuminating all the parts of my father that lived on in myself, for better or for worse.
For better: the parts of myself that embraced laughter and brought joy to others.
For worse: the parts of myself that were emotionally reactive.
For better: the parts of myself that could see things in new and creative ways.
For worse: the parts of myself that steamrolled others when I felt passionate about something.
I hated those dark parts. I wanted them to stay in the shadows, where they belonged. I had sworn to myself that I would never, ever, make anybody feel the same pain he had caused us. And when I recognized anything in myself that resembled those parts of him that had caused us so much pain, I hated myself. Loathed, even.
One day, I heard somebody speak on the importance of knowing who you are and where you come from. Their advice for if you don’t like where you come from was particularly poignant.
Take the worst parts of where you come from, and make them the best parts of who you are. You cannot change where you come from, but if you live your life detached from those parts, you will spend a life detached from yourself, floating in a state of disassociation.
And so, for the first time, I opened up all my boxes of mementos and took time to sit with the parts, both the good and the bad. I struggled to come to terms with who my father was. A villain? A victim of mental illness? But my father was not a bad person. My father was not a good person.
My father was just a person.
A person with traits and tendencies, that could manifest in both healthy and unhealthy ways. As I came to view my own inherited traits through this lens, they suddenly became less revolting.
My ability to feel emotions deeply allowed me create meaningful connections, tell impactful stories, and bring joy to the lives of others. My moments of reactivity were an unhealthy manifestation of the same trait.
My ability to think outside the box helped me solve problems and innovate. My unhealthy manifestations of this trait occurred when I failed to respect the value of other perspectives to create a balanced and holistic solution.
The minimalistic side of me would have loved to downsize the burden of these mementos, but the holistic side found freedom from sitting with them. I cannot discard parts of myself, but in sitting with them and bringing them into the light, I can choose to be more conscious of them and use them in a healthy way.
I can be my father’s daughter, for better.
There is a certain beauty in creating space for the darkest parts of your soul, for it is only when every part of you has a place to rest, you can truly be home.
beautiful writing and thoughts. much love 💛