On discarded articles, abandoned unceremoniously.

Today we put the remaining miscellaneous of your deceased grandparents' things in a dumpster with a capacity of four tons. 

I don't know how you felt because we worked hard at it for 90 minutes and then went back inside to shower and eat without talking about it. But I saw you kept the wooden sign with her initials.

At first I could tell it was junk we were moving. There was a pile high with inflatable inner tubes and rags, half-full cans full of paint, and the like. It wasn't until after all of that when we got to your grandfather's work benches and your grandmother's books that I was struck by the task at hand. The partial cans of motor oil and the old Maxwell coffee containers labeled nuts, bolts, and nails, the pegboard intended for use later on, and the old work shirt I found strewn in the corner - they all told me a story. The pieces of his life in this barn told me how much time he spent out there tinkering, thinking. I stood and held a pile for the dumpster and looked around. I imagined this man I never met, toying with odds and ends and electronics. I wondered at his thoughts in those hours of solitary time. 

And there were your grandmother's books. Surely, these were once kept carefully in the house, safe from the weather and musk and rodents. But someone could not bear to throw them out and they were brought in here for safekeeping as they worked the courage to rid her things. The books; many titles of nonfiction and National Geographic. There were children's books, which I imagine she might have read to you. There were so many Reader's Digest compilations. And I saw a glimpse into the interests of a women I have only heard about. I wondered if she read all of the titles. I did not recognize them.

Like clockwork, you and I trucked back and forth from garage to dumpster with our arms full of others' lives. We passed one another midway and might have glanced or not. The barn slowly began to look empty, to show its walls and floor, and stairs to the second floor. 

We reached the maximum level on the dumpster. "Small and heavy things," you told me. "Small and heavy things." And we found more oil cans. We found old batteries. We took a house fan from the 1950s and tossed it over the edge. 

"Small and heavy things," you said.

In the end it was the books. I hate to say that, it hurts to admit it. But in the end we took the books, too. 

Ranunculus

I feel an affinity toward you, Emily. The Myth, the Lady in White, the poet.

Some necessary research on your basic history led me to a site that claimed to hold your biography and I found myself enthralled by you. It is foremost the fact that you were content not to be published or seek to be widely read during your lifetime, that you wrote because it brought you joy. Secondly that you were often baking, and excelled at it. Thirdly that you tended to a garden that became greatly admired in Amherst. Well done, Emily.

Those reasons, and more: because you bravely wrote directly to a contributor of the Atlantic Monthly to inquire his opinion of your talents, and because of, later, the way you described yourself in a letter to Mr. Higginson. Because you were close with your family, that you became reclusive but not bitter, ill but not forlorn, not always. You are both morbid and dainty in your writing, capturing at once the marriage of a finite sense of life and a peculiar, eternal longevity, too. What I read from others and what I read from you seem to tell a story of a woman taunted by the deaths of those she loved, one whose reclusive nature did not yield anger but rather introspection and a curious sense of humor.

I admire that you do not hold true to a form in your style, that it is rumored you did strange things (like speak to people through doorways instead of face to face), that you requested your coffin be carried, not driven, through the buttercups to your gravesite. The very request embodies you; poetic, serene, and macabre.

To act other than what is normal in the pursuit

It's that glee which suddenly and irrelevantly escapes one's mouth, in the form of a toothy grin and sparkling eyes, upon realizing people will come to this thing you have built. I must now learn to trust myself, or try to, for I am still unsettled by the sheer imagination this project possesses. And yet, I reach out and touch it and I know it is real.

Because I am living proof that a wild-caught hare of a dream can really, actually become true, so now you must believe in yours. And so, I carry on with this.

And so.

You and I, Dad.

Together we built that napkin holder for Mom. I drew penciled hearts along the side of it and you smiled and drank coffee from your travel mug. Is that the memory I want to remember?

When did I think your accident would be easy? I supposed that you would physically return home and your brain was elastic enough to bounce back to its former being because you are my dad and you can do anything. You could do anything.

You could do anything. 

And now, I realize that you were broken on June 6, 2002. All those years ago, your brain was injured and a big part of it was taken away and you are different. I thought that essay I penned in college fixed it, Dad. I thought when I put those words on a piece of paper and it was published in a magazine, that I could put it on a shelf and store it away and allow your brain injury to become a dusty memory we  could all ignore. 

I thought I'd dealt with this and that I knew what to expect. But the partial death of the fatherly figure I knew is something I am only just learning how to cope with. Because now Mom is aging and you do not have the skills to care for her. 

Because now you are doing illogical things that makes us all wonder where you went. You bring home ammunition and tell us to prepare for an apocalypse and to buy seeds; many, many seeds. 

Mom has told me that she will need you to sign the house over to her name because of the likelihood of Alzheimer's in the near future. 

And all I can think about is that damn napkin holder. You were my hero, Dad. And you are here, you are still here but I've lost the father of my childhood, of my best memories. 

And I never mourned him. And tonight I cry desperately, trying to grasp something that no longer exists in this life. I am trying to cup air in my hands. Even my deep breaths cannot satiate the desperation for oxygen, because there is not enough in this entire house to calm a broken heart. 

You did not teach me, Dad, how to be okay right now. I am going into a cold and silent adventure, blindly with our family as we try to help you understand what we cannot. I love you, Dad. Please do not forget me. Do not forget your little girl.

And I am so scared. 

I know I am like the rain.

True friendship recognizes no age gap. Its love does not readily admit distance, wane in the absence of a phone call, or recruit negativity. It fills dark, lonely, yawning nights with flashes of light and laughter. Its unconditional severity of relentless joy makes its recipients breathe easier. It reminds two people that they are more than a human shell. It necessitates us to recognize our spirituality because if we are lucky enough, we share with another that thing they call "kindred spirits".

How else is it possible to understand the message and depth behind a text said with only two words so that it might bring you to tears or create a hearty laughter that echoes in your throat?

How else can one simply look and know because your eyes told them so? To respond to a sentiment before you reach out to tell of it, to harness support, compassion, or encouragement in that very moment you falter; to find your footing on the other's cupped hands as they patiently wait to hoist you into your next great chapter.

How else can you find the freedom that comes with a vulnerability so raw? To lay your human experience plainly in the sight of another without the compelling fear that you should be judged for it.

And instead, you are welcomed with open arms.

Plain and Simple

Your fingertips hit each key expertly with the support of practice behind you and the confidence of skill within you. You effortlessly trill the keys and bring me to a sense of peace because I too have confidence in your ability to carry the song through to a graceful completion. The melody I am familiar with becomes exciting and serene all at once. The treble lends harmonic notes that curve across the staff without a care and the bass gives a sturdy ground from which they launch.

The key changes awaken emotions that bring me to tears. Even the dissonances yield into easy recoveries that bend into grand plies I want to pick up and hold tightly so that I may remember this feeling your songs give me. The power is found at once in that which you hold back. Instead of a relentless appeal to the senses you present a quiet gift that dances and twirls until the heartbreakingly beautiful keys at last rest, until it is again time to find oneself among them. 

I breathe easier, think more clearly, and truly find my heart's beat amidst these notes, your notes. 

It was seven years

The last time your family gathered in this house to celebrate Thanksgiving was 2006, so I felt it was a wonderful obligation to open the house to others on this day in honor of the spirit it carried for many years.

So we decided to deep fry a turkey, roast vegetables, and roll out a pumpkin pie. Nanny brought too much food to count and others brought a myriad of more dishes. Within hours the countertops were filled with glass pans that held stuffing, cheese, and carbohydrates made with love and anticipation of being together. We turned on jazz music and a muted football game, threw the curtains open and asked the sunshine to warm our house.

People arrived in groups with smiles and jokes. We greeted with hugs, poured drinks with laughter and wandered from indoors to out without a care. The children took to running in circles through the garage and yard, into the side door and alongside the kitchen, where I stationed myself and timed the last of the dishes cooking and reheating. We could not stop talking about the hummus appetizer, the Paleo gravy made with cashews. We said thanks, we ate, and we raved.

We drank coffee, threw the football, and sat talking.

The cutting, cooking, cleaning, and preparation for days like these are the art that is creating life. It cannot be in vain, for now that day is captured in each of our memories in different ways. We may not recall finite details but we will remember how we felt, we will remember the love and the joy. And the gift to possess these moments is the greatest for which we could ask.

We parted, full of food and even more, full of spirit.