“In the years to come, whether I’m waiting tables, in a hit play, or the head of a corporation, I’ll be thinking of you and all the valuable and much-needed help you’ve given me.”
My parents downsized, sold their home and moved, and I found a trove of tributes to my father as I helped them purge.
He’s a retired professor and a natural-born teacher, and his students noticed, listened and remembered. I got a plastic storage bin about 6 inches deep — the kind you put your summer T-shirts in when you’re ready to shove them under your bed for winter — and started collecting pictures, gifts and letters of gratitude.
Notes slid out of books and nooks and drawers, and when the volume of paper overwhelmed the bin, I switched to a bigger one and a bigger one again.
The man who picked up my parents’ trash for 40 years (or some number no one can remember) came by to hug my mother and share pictures of his newest grandbaby with my parents. He made an extra stop to take extra trash — all the loose ends that accumulate, that you hold on to even though you don’t know why. And he got to say goodbye to my parents again, his loose ends tied and tidy.
Moving is brutal. I once read that people fear it as much as public speaking and death. And this move — leaving a town that was the anchor for my parents and my youth, having to decide what loving a thing or a place means and how deep that love goes — was devastating.
And the stuff. So much stuff overwhelmed the time available to pack it. The movers were picking up boxes as we filled them.
Among the zillions of letters my parents saved, there were old pictures — sepia-toned, stiffly posed photos of family gone long before I was born. There were pictures of grandparents and parents, all younger than I am now. There were pictures of family beach vacations and group embraces.
And there was a small, square paper, grayed with age and in my hurry hardly worth attention, that fluttered to the floor. It was a pay stub showing my Great-Aunt Esther earned $64 for two weeks of work. On the back of it, in her shaky hand, she scrawled, “Never do something because your friends do. Make up your own mind and persuade people to follow you.”
My great-aunt was a north star of love. Her wishes for our health and happiness came out in her thick Ukrainian accent, and she left lipstick marks on my face when she kissed me. I remember my brother interviewing her, holding a ’70s-style mic up to capture her voice and record her history, our family history, of escaping pogroms of the Jews and immigrating here for a better life. My parents translated that interview from cassette tape to CD when technology changed. I have it but I’ve never listened to it because the space between us seems too painful to bridge.
In a moment surrounded by packing boxes and steeped in my family’s history, Aunt Esther whispered a secret: The people we love are never lost to us, no matter where we go or how much time passes.
Who has felt the soul-searing pain of loving and being loved, pain that sucks the air from your lungs and buoys you at the same time, pain that’s bigger than you because love is bigger than you?
It’s that love that makes you wish you could be in two places at once, could roll back time or leap ahead. It’s that love that makes it feel impossible to leave, even when it’s time. It’s that love that makes you do it anyway.
A family across the street baked a pie and watched for us to return from dinner so they could surprise my parents. The pie was lemon meringue. I didn’t know that was my mother’s favorite, but they did.
Friends came to thank my mother for sitting in the front row at town council meetings to say the things they wanted to say. They thanked her for showing up with cookies and care when they needed either, and for being their loudest cheerleader. They thanked my father for his fairness, leadership and humor.
The constant knocks on the door, to share a moment and a memory, drove the dog crazy.
In the chaos of the countdown to the move, the neighbors showed up. Someone was vaccumming, someone else loading their car for one last charity drop-off. Someone went to UPS with the cable box and someone dragged down their garbage and recycling cans for us to fill.
As we pulled away, our cars packed to the roof, a neighbor told me that my parents leaving was a real loss. My mother was the unofficial mayor. My parents were builders of community and holders of memory.
That week with my parents, I was wrapped in the connection of joy and grief. And I was caught in the noise, though I know the precious stuff isn’t the dining room table (though it was beautifully grained maple) or my great-aunt’s bedroom set or the fancy rug. It isn’t even the giant container of gratitude I collected.
What’s precious will be going through that box with my family and sharing memories and laughter and maybe the tears that go with both.
What’s precious is seeing my folks making their new home in Portland and knowing they have more history to write, more open arms and outstretched hands to offer.
My mother saw a notice for the monthly meeting about how to make their new community better and she got a gleam in her eye. It’s the energy of the start of something new.
Now that’s precious.
