June, 2003:
remembering Dad

I don't really need concrete objects in order to remind me of my father who died 16 years ago this month. I think of him often, and even (as I've confessed numerous times) continue to hold conversations with him, though of course I project what I assume will be his responses to my questions, or the questions that he might raise as a reaction to the myriad changes that have taken place in my life and in the world in general in the time since he hasn't been here.

And of course if I want them, concrete objects are readily available: his first typewriter, art work once on his walls that now is on mine, and more. I hardly ever open a large box of letters received from him over the years, but it's there if I dare take the time to plunge into it. I don't keep a photograph handy, but that as well is easy for me to find.

On the other hand, numerous reminders are more readily available - reminders that it might be said that I stumble across, even if I've prepared myself for that stumble. Perhaps it's more accurate to say that I set up these stumbling block so that I'll encounter them. I'm always aware that these reminders are near, but somehow I don't always access them. Instead, I allow them to surprise me, to creep up on me, and then suddenly create a mental picture of Dad in my mind.



The book shelf I face as I write has numerous books with a small sticker bearing a capital J on their spine. All of these are books which once graced Dad's bookshelves and now crowd mine. Some of them I use, many I've read, and even more are books that I haven't read, but don't see myself donating to a library. They had meaning to Dad, and their presence on my shelves creates an ongoing picture of him for me.

A limited collection, perhaps all that remains, of Dad's soapings are in a drawer in the bathroom. Though these were originally meant as a sort of "in-transit" art form, I've left them intact and out of use, finding them anew when I open the drawer to take out a new bar of soap, or a tube of toothpaste.

And my wallet, that has no lack of rarely, if ever, used cards and various slips of paper, also contains a dog-eared "review of literature" that Dad carried with him, and that over the years I've carried as well, even though this particular slip of paper is hardly decipherable any more.

Taken together, do all of these make up a picture, a totality that might be Dad? Of course not. They're no more than small, singular reminders of separate aspects of a complex personality. They don't try to build a whole, nor do I try to make them do so. I like the way they offer slight glimpses, each from a different angle, allowing me, perhaps requiring me, to build that whole in my mind again and again.


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