I wrote this for Moss Piglet, their next themed issue is on “is it junk, or not?” This will fit for my “big legacy “ book too, I think.
Cleaning Out My Parents’ House
Eight olive green metal file cabinets solider at attention in their den, four drawers high. They swallow the light coming in from the west window. Each drawer scrapes open stuffed with manila folders, brittle and bulging.
I spent hours reading books, or talking on the telephone in here. When my brother and I were kids, Dad had a special way of calling for us, the high-low song of a chickadee courting. When we heard it, we came running.
I pull files; find tags, and instructions for every appliance bought in the fifty-five years they lived in this house. The new chest freezer from the year my appendix ruptured and I almost died when I was five. The Sunbeam Deluxe hair dryer with the plastic hood and coiled hose that Mom and I shared. My giant rollers barely fit beneath its shower-cap crown.
A receipt for the yellow bed tray, foldable legs, and pink flowers blooming at the edges. I brought her toast on sick days. She brought me chicken broth when I was small and fevered. Dad’s warranties for fishing rods and reels are neatly filed for his fly-casting passions.
Handwritten notes from church council meetings. Speeches for Friday night forums. Mother's jotted notes from history lectures on the State Station's University of the Air. League of Women Voters debate notes; scribbled thoughts on theology, philosophy, her books. Her presentation for the church circle on Gift from the Sea.
Operator manuals: the Oster blender, hand-held electric egg beater, and the black Singer sewing machine. The Cuisinart Food Processor she feared; the blade too sharp, the motor too fast.
Instructions for a 1962 copper stove, countertop style, paired with a shoulder-high oven built into brand-new cupboards. The GE fridge that replaced the old white Kelvinator. Receipt from Mirman's Furniture for the brown loopy couch where I rode the arm like a horse, watching The Lone Ranger.
A folder titled Genealogy. Typed notes tracing our family back to Norway to an eighth great-grandmother, born 1798, died 1898, weeding her garden. Personalities of elders and long-gone cousins, their quirks cataloged.
And thick envelopes of letters my grandparents wrote each week through the 50s, 60s, 70s. News from their lives inked from a time when no one would call long-distance unless someone had died.
I open the patio door to breathe. I sweat. I recycle receipts, old manuals, and empty folders into the junk bin. But I keep the letters. I keep the family tree.
In the back of the last drawer, I find it:
A letter from Dad, never mailed. His shaky hand drifting downhill, eyes failing. He writes of Mom’s complaints, her aging anxieties. His frustrations. Addressed to me, sealed in silence.
I close the last drawer. Eight olive-green soldiers, ready for auction.
Warm breeze
through the open door
a single chickadee calls