April 10, 2013

I went up to my Dad's house today. He has been gone since February 5. His grave has been dug and lined. His body is at the funeral home. Soon he will be placed in the ground next to my aunt Evelyn, next to their grandparents, Anna and Albert. But today the grave is open and waiting until my sister, the funeral director, the minister and myself can find a common date to meet and bury my father.

Somehow, I found myself at my Dad's house, after a short drive, looking for a place to sketch. I went into his barn which had been picked through by many others in a yard sale sort of way. Drawers were pulled out, contents jumbled, things turned over, left, abandoned, due to no perceived value. The entire place looked violated.

All the stuff my Dad had coveted had been rifled through with no regard to him, his lust for collecting or consideration of organization. It was a feeling I was not familiar with. My sister had many yard sales here, in the sanctity of a building my father built with his own hands to carefully collect and preserve his most precious tangibles. People had tested his skills, his eye for something valuable by sauntering in and rummaging through everything he had accumulated in a manner that was quick concise and lacking respect.

No doubt my Dad accumulated all of the stuff he had in a likewise fashion. He bartered at estate and yard sales, always hoping for a deal. As I perused through the moderate mayhem I came across one of the items I recall from early childhood. It was my Dad's gray toolbox among a pile of stuff, on the floor.

Ever since I can remember he had this tool box. Before the yard sales began I had put a tag on the box with the letter "K" on it. This signified my name. The box was so worn out I couldn't imagine using it myself but didn't want it sold. I was hoping it would remain intact in perpetuity, I guess.

Today the box was nearly empty of all the tools I remembered. All the tools as a child I would hold and wonder what they were for had escaped the box and it's characteristic grayness. As I grew older my Dad taught me how to use the tools which were now gone. Not long ago they were mine for the taking. I declined and now they are elsewhere. The waterpump pliers, the crescent wrench, the open ended wrenches and black handled screwdrivers, among others, all overflowing, held down by a tray on top that was also missing were gone. The box had been ravaged. The old gray box was nearly empty, save for a few tools I did not recognize.

I missed all the tools as I stared into the box. My mind flashed to all the places I had seen the box in my life. The cellar and garage of my childhood home, underneath and in the trunk of our family car, on the old jitterbug, in my Dad's home on his kitchen floor and now in his barn, empty.

I paused, stood up and looked around at the mess all around me. Unprepared