What Was I Thinking?
Almost a decade after my dad passed away, Mom was packing up her room for a move from Boise ID to Olympia WA. She called to complain about my brother-in-law. He’d called me too, bragging about how much of her shit he’d already disposed of. “She’ll never miss it”, he said. I did not envy her station. Nearly 90, these were the challenges that life doled out. She had also found something I might be interested in. I should look for it in the mail.
It was heavy. About half a ream of paper. Brown paper packaging. I pulled on the brown sisal twine, slipping my fingers between the tape sealing the old bag she’d repurposed. What I saw next kinda took my breath away.
Dad’s handwriting covered the top sheet of paper.
My eyes took in the first sentence like a headline. It looked like a memoir. Newfound treasure!
“For what it’s worth.” That was the mood he waded in with. He began sketching his beginnings, birthdate and place.
I got up to make a cup of dark roast. Whatever I had planned that day, I canceled. You can do that when you’re the boss of your life.
I made a place for my brew, leaving a patch on the table where I could stack pages as I read. He only wrote on the one side. I noticed the similarities…
