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In fifth grade, I had taken up the habit of having a 'sick day' on
one of my father's days off to avoid the despised fifth grade
teacher, but to also have a chance to get to know my father better.
On one of these days, my father had to sort through the home's attic
and I joined him up in the dark and dusty space. Sorting through his
collection of post World War II 'Life' magazines he stumbled upon a
box with a typed manuscript inside. He looked at it briefly as he
remembered what it was. It was a book written by Pappy's brother,
based in their childhood location of Nova Scotia. This came as a
surprise to me as I hadn't known my father's side of the family had
come from Canada. I asked about Pappy's brother but dad simply said
he had died young and left it at that.
Sorting through more stuff, I found a giant sized dictionary missing
its cover. Published soon into the nineteen hundreds, it had more
words in it than I had ever known existed. It had been squirreled
away in the attic after the hard bound cover had fallen off decades
ago, but had been kept given how much it had cost at the time it was
purchased. My father said it had been Pappy's brother's and he had
used it while writing his book. I asked if I could bring it down and
look through it. He agreed and I had a great rest of the day seeing
all of these words I had never heard of before and wondered if I
could one day get it rebound with a new protective cover. Then it
was gone. I assumed my mother had found it.
Twenty years later, in the pre-Spring of Nineteen Ninety-Four,
Daina's mother had died.
What more can one say but that?
Her various siblings from across the Western half of the country
assembled for the first time in decades for the funeral, then quickly
dispersed as many had disowned the others during their lives and
didn't want to spend time with each other. As her father had already
made plans to live elsewhere, there was the family home to sort
through and place on the market. Of the four siblings living in
Colorado, Daina told me that two of them had not been as helpful as
she thought they should have been during their mother's illness and
believed that sorting through the home would be a task handled by her
and her youngest brother. Given that I had been joining Daina for
years on other errand runs and I felt like I owed her a lot given all
the free meals she had fed me over the years, I offered to join her
on the weekends and help with the home.
Sorting through one's childhood heirlooms, there's always that
conflict of things that once meant something to you, but did it
still mean enough for you to make a new place for it in your adult
life? That was the dilemma Daina faced with each and every day
we tackled one room after another. At the time Daina kept more than
she should and we brought many boxes of items from Denver back to her
condo and its associated single car garage, now dedicated to storage.
Even the simplest things such as a canister of soothing power Daina
had bought her mother during her last weeks had a deep meaning for
her and when another sibling threw it away, Daina was horrified as it
meant something to her, at that time. Each loss of a
personal possession of her mother's often hit her as a reminder of
the loss of her mother, itself.
Daina told me I could have anything that another family member didn't
want as my payment for the time and effort helping her. While I
couldn't imagine wanting anything, I kept the offer in mind. Once
the top floor was done and the bottom basement floor cleared out, all
that was left was piled in the main floor for a final sorting and
review. Would a distant family member want it? Should it go to
charity? Or was it to badly worn and needed to be tossed out?
Suddenly, to my surprise there was a huge dictionary that was
published soon into the Nineteen hundreds. While I couldn't say it
was the same edition as my father and I had found twenty years
earlier, it was still similar enough that it reminded me of that
treasured book, since lost.
I asked Daina if I could have it. She didn't think so as it was a
family heirloom in good condition and she was sure another family
member would want it. Still, she asked her father and he said,
''No,'' as he felt someone in the family should have it. Hopes
dashed, it was put aside and I continued to help Daina until
her family home was emptied out after little over four consecutive
weekends of sorting through everything. As there was little else
left to do, Daina made the last trip to Denver on her own and she and
her father took a last walk through the house before it was placed
for sale. When Daina returned, she had a surprise for me.
No other family member had wanted the giant dictionary and her father
said I could have it given all of my help. I eagerly accepted it
from her and told her to thank her father for me. I spent the next
few weeks reading through one after another of the very thin pages.
Given its weight, it had to be placed on a table to read through.
Once the table space was needed, I made a slot for it amongst my book
shelves and there it stayed to be looked at once in a very great
while when it was time to look up an obscure word.
Without her mother to care for and visit from now on, I assumed Daina
and I would spend more weekends doing things together...
In reality our friendship seemed to be on its last leg.
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