Monday Monday

I spent the morning practicing my waiting skills. I didn't do half bad. I might not have noticed the heat and gnats in the sandy southern car lot if I'd had a crossword puzzle or book to occupy my mind. Mostly it was fun to watch my son pick out a new truck. Well, not a NEW truck, exactly, but new to him and running, which was more than you could say about his old van that died on his way to work this morning. Mondays are never good days, but you know it's gonna suck when you're driving down the expressway and your car slows to a stop with only enough oomph to get it to the shoulder of the road before pronouncing last rites.

Neither Johnnie nor I are much into "negotiating". I pretty much wanted to flash the biggest wad of money I've ever had in my hand and say take it or leave it. Since it wasn't my deal to make, I left it up to smooth talking John. We did the old, "let us think about it" then left kicking ourselves before we'd traveled a block, because John was sure he had passed up a really good deal. After a phone call home, a Coke, a U-turn and a prayer Johnson has a man-sized truck and a big smile on his face.

Since I spent the better part of the day away from home, I made myself head into Dad's room to see what could go out in the trash tonight. I've read a lot about de-cluttering lately. How to do it, the psychology of it, etc. so I knew it would be hard. I didn't expect to find 20 years worth of calendars that my father kept with almost every day of his life noted therein. Like the days in 1995 that he mowed the grass, fertilized the azaleas or planted mums. Or the time my mother got sick in 1990. The number of times they went to Tennessee, or the commissary or the hospital. Not diaries so much as a snapshot of my father, a pack rat who kept good records. Each calendar was a place he could return to refresh his memory.

It wasn't easy to work into a rhythm of tossing things out because I kept stopping to read. It's weird to think that a person's life can be summed up in a stack of calendars. The tears slid down my cheeks in silent salute to the man who never managed to impart this attention to detail trait to his middle daughter. The daughter who will pile them all together and gently lay them in a black plastic trash bag then say a prayer of thanksgiving for Dad and his notes.

Wishing for you a life lived your way,

Merry ME