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I was up at my parents' father's house earlier today. He's not there; he's got a new job (at 84) that took him to London.
The changes since my mother died, 2.5 months ago, are striking. So, too, are the things that are not yet changed.
He's gotten new checks printed, with just his name on them. He's cleaned off reams and cases of paperwork - only some of which has made it to my house... He's stacked books she was reading off into this corner or that. As I looked at things set aside, some of them told me stories or revised my memories of things that had happened.
Understand, I have no sense of time. So, I am not always going to be sure of the order of events. Caveat finished... At some point in the year before she died, I picked up The Thief Lord DVD for her to read. She'd introduced me to Cornelia Funke, after all, so it only seemed fair that I offer her that for her viewing pleasure.
She seemed confused at the time, and unsure of what I spoke when I mentioned the author and books to her. I wrote it off to vagueness at the time. It was, of course, a result of her mental deterioration. (And the more I reflect on that last year of her life, the more elements of it I can see. 20/30 hindsight, doncha know?)
I found and claimed a portrait of me that I had given her, by Frank Kelly Freas. I'll probably scan and post it at some point - it is from the early 80's, I believe. I reclaimed a framed print that I'd given her that had never found its way onto a wall. The glass is a little stained, but I can clean it. It's got a little girl with a toy Space Shuttle, a telescope in her room, and the moon shining brightly through her window. Not sure what year that went to her, but certainly not in the last decade.
My father had asked me to "remove that half-log" from his office, already. It took me a while to figure out what he meant, but I did and have done. It had two painted stone owls inserted into holes in the wood. One of the owls fell out a few years ago, I guess, but I figured out what room it had been in before the office, where it was sitting on the floor, and there was the second owl. Did I give her this? Probably, if only because I can't imagine its having come from one of the other kids.
A portrait of her when she was fairly young - 11 or maybe as old as 13 - is sitting on the floor in another room, leaning on a wall with the picture turned in so her face cannot be seen.
She fretted the last year or two that the first books of her Oz set and her Patty Fairfield series were missing. She suspected that one or another worker had made off with them, and she may well have been right. In February, one of my local used book stores had an Oz book that I knew she had neither read nor even seen. I put it on layaway to get her as a present. I suppose I need to complete that purchase at some point, one way or the other.
The house felt very odd with him gone and her presence absent.
The world feels very odd with her presence absent.
The changes since my mother died, 2.5 months ago, are striking. So, too, are the things that are not yet changed.
He's gotten new checks printed, with just his name on them. He's cleaned off reams and cases of paperwork - only some of which has made it to my house... He's stacked books she was reading off into this corner or that. As I looked at things set aside, some of them told me stories or revised my memories of things that had happened.
Understand, I have no sense of time. So, I am not always going to be sure of the order of events. Caveat finished... At some point in the year before she died, I picked up The Thief Lord DVD for her to read. She'd introduced me to Cornelia Funke, after all, so it only seemed fair that I offer her that for her viewing pleasure.
She seemed confused at the time, and unsure of what I spoke when I mentioned the author and books to her. I wrote it off to vagueness at the time. It was, of course, a result of her mental deterioration. (And the more I reflect on that last year of her life, the more elements of it I can see. 20/30 hindsight, doncha know?)
I found and claimed a portrait of me that I had given her, by Frank Kelly Freas. I'll probably scan and post it at some point - it is from the early 80's, I believe. I reclaimed a framed print that I'd given her that had never found its way onto a wall. The glass is a little stained, but I can clean it. It's got a little girl with a toy Space Shuttle, a telescope in her room, and the moon shining brightly through her window. Not sure what year that went to her, but certainly not in the last decade.
My father had asked me to "remove that half-log" from his office, already. It took me a while to figure out what he meant, but I did and have done. It had two painted stone owls inserted into holes in the wood. One of the owls fell out a few years ago, I guess, but I figured out what room it had been in before the office, where it was sitting on the floor, and there was the second owl. Did I give her this? Probably, if only because I can't imagine its having come from one of the other kids.
A portrait of her when she was fairly young - 11 or maybe as old as 13 - is sitting on the floor in another room, leaning on a wall with the picture turned in so her face cannot be seen.
She fretted the last year or two that the first books of her Oz set and her Patty Fairfield series were missing. She suspected that one or another worker had made off with them, and she may well have been right. In February, one of my local used book stores had an Oz book that I knew she had neither read nor even seen. I put it on layaway to get her as a present. I suppose I need to complete that purchase at some point, one way or the other.
The house felt very odd with him gone and her presence absent.
The world feels very odd with her presence absent.
