Opinion | Things Of This World (Published 1996)
Rereading a 25-year-old piece that I once considered my best.
This is a digitized version of an article from The Times’s print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them.
My father died on Thanksgiving night. As I sat with family and friends over the next few days, my grief and sense of disbelief barely lessened.
Finally, to stave off my sadness, I got busy. My sister had helped my father move into his last apartment, on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, when his health began to fail; now, we agreed, I would move his possessions out. I made more than a dozen phone calls to charities. ‘’My father died,’’ I said, each time holding back my tears, ‘’and I know he would have wanted the contents of his apartment donated to someone who needs them.’’
I discovered, however, that giving things away in New York City is tricky — finding the right organization, speaking with the right person, offering the right donation. Indeed, most charities, tired of receiving loads of pure junk, wanted to inspect the items before they would agree to pick them up. They could not use anything chipped, scratched or stained.
