The Iguana

[I would like to thank the many people who have reached out to me in response to last week’s post about dad’s death. Your support has been overwhelming and uplifting. I am deeply grateful.]

After the recent death of my father, I have now turned to the task of “taming the iguana” – dad’s own term for the hundreds of random sticky notes, files, and mislabelled boxes that fill his home. Doing so has uncorked both laughter and tears, as well it should. These two emotions often arrive together.

Facing the iguana is like living in a scene from “A Beautiful Mind”: number of yellow sticky pads strewn randomly about dad’s house–114; number of yellow sticky pads containing useful information–7.  Almost every box is simply labelled “mementos”. Thanks dad.

I have yet to locate an original copy of dad’s will. But I have found three boxes of interstate roadmaps from the 1970s. I also came across water bills from 1992. They were in a box labelled “mementos”.

There are two bedroom closets upstairs. One contains just two pieces of clothing: my mother’s wedding dress and dad’s old boy scout uniform. The other contains dad’s extensive collection of flannel pajama pants and nerdy t-shirts.  My favourite is one that says “Technically, Moses was the first person to download data from the cloud to a tablet”. I once gave him a shirt from the CERN particle accelerator that says “I think your Boson is giving me a Hadron”. But I can’t find the shirt. I think dad must have discarded it for fear of appearing rude.  I have no such scruples.

Dad supported dozens of charities. His desk is piled high with aid appeals from dozens more that he had not yet gotten round to supporting but that he did not have the heart to turn down.

I smile each time I encounter dad’s two prized refrigerator magnets (which is often). One says:

o   “To Do is to Be” – Nietzsche

o   “To Be is to Do” – Kant

o   “Do Be Do Be Do” – Sinatra

The other magnet simply states: “Without ice cream, there would be darkness and chaos”.

It is the photographs that most elicit laughter and tears. Each one is a physical reminder of dad with my mother, with grandkids, family, and beloved friends. This is also true of the photos we have received in recent weeks from friends and family. Like the one enclosed. When my son’s best friend heard of the death, he commemorated dad on his basketball shoes.

The Irish have a term, “thin place”. It is where this world and the next one are barely indistinguishable, like the wardrobe in Narnia. The hospital room during dad’s final moments was a “thin place”. If you reached out there you could almost push through into where dad was going. In recent weeks, Dad’s house has become a “thin place”, thanks to the iguana.

[If you know someone else who might enjoy a lighthearted story to begin their week, kindly forward them WordsfortheWeary. The more the merrier.]