The Boy Who Read Every Book in the Library

My father died on the eighth of august, a week before his 87th birthday. He had a good life and we had a good relationship. But.

My mother is fading, her memory going, and I’ve been living with her, packing to move her… somewhere else. Back north, to be close to her surviving family, which would be us, her two sons.

Winnowing down the belongings to an iconic few, going through old photos, old clippings, old drawings, financial records, my parent’s academic work. Throwing away the useless tech cruft that builds up around us, the old cell phones and land lines and USB cables and battery chargers and transformer bricks that go to nothing that you’re afraid to throw away, in case you suddenly need whatever the hell it is they used to provide power for.

The retirement community will absorb what we leave behind. Oh, they have experience doing that. It’s a donation. Or more like a lizard shedding its tail to escape a predator.

I am a very lucky fifty six year old, to have not lost anyone but grandparents who was important to me. So lucky. And I’m so torn open now, so empty and lost. I’m not sure why. I’m told it fades. But never goes away completely.

Good bye, Dad. The boy who read every book in the library. The man who took his young sons bowling, for a time. The science fiction fan who bestowed upon me the genre. A futurist, technologist, a curious soul, an early computer programmer. Bridge player, crossword puzzle do-er and life long nightly drinker who never missed a day of work and was seldom visibly drunk.

A passionate atheist. With a wicked sense of humor.

One of the Lucky Few, the name for his generation, the Korean War set who ended up teaching the baby boom. Tenured professor. A man who dearly  loved wearing a suit. Who rose above his working class roots. To be respectable, a man of substance. Husband and father.

My father. Who I never had enough of.

But what I had will have to do.