A great man
The last time there was a presidential election My daughter wasn’t alive yet; my son wasn’t in high school yet; I lived somewhere else. The last time there was a presidential election my step-dad was still alive and I remember calling him to ask him about a couple of issues on the ballot right from my machine at the polling station. I hadn’t crammed hard enough that day or in the weeks leading up to the election and I knew he had done his research and could give me an informed overview. Needless to say, this election I didn’t have him to call so a lot of issues got the words no vote next to them. (Man! I miss you Dad!)
The good new is: the Friday before Election Day was Dad’s birthday and I cleaned my mom’s (and what used to be his) house. This is good news because I got to feel kinda close to him and have many, many reminders around. Mom had a project for me in addition to the general cleaning, which was the norm; scoot her enormous bed around the room and vacuum under it as best that I could. Okay. Under mom’s bed I found many pairs of dusty shoes, an under-the-bed storage container full of clothes, a tennis ball, seventy-three cents in loose change, a small red white and blue ribbon with a stick pin in it that one wears on the lapel, an old scale from before the bathroom renovation of 2006, and I also found one lone cigarette butt. The cigarette butt was Dad’s, smoked by him, snuffed out the way he always did where it is practically folded in half, and dropped by him – for me to find years later.
I piled all the above mentioned items in the hallway just outside the (front/master) bedroom door which is also right outside the middle bedroom door, except when I came to the cigarette butt, that I studied, then I thought about saving it… then I thought about how dad would have probably thought I was crazy if I saved it (plus, when I cleaned his basement workshop area for mom I stored away a whole ashtray full of ’em :-)) so I walked in the opposite direction of the doorway pile toward the little wastebasket with the rounded, swinging cover and swung the little lid open just enough to slip the butt through.
On with the cleaning. Vacuumed, vacuumed, vacuumed, dusted cords, moved the bed, vacuumed, vacuumed, vacuumed, moved the bed, vacuumed, vacuumed, vacuumed, and so on. Used all my might to push the bed back into its original position. Time to deal with the pile out side of the door. Threw the tennis ball down the stairs for the dog, put the under-the-bed storage container beck under the bed and picked up the first two pair of shoes to store them in the middle bedroom closet untill mom lets me know what she wants done with them. I walked through the carpeted room that used to be mine and is now a redecorated version of itself for guests, opened the closet door and started a neat row of shoes along one side. I returned to the pile, picked up two more pairs and swung around to walk them to the closet and something caught my eye. On the carpet, directly in my path to the closet was that cigarette butt. I put the shoes in the closet row and returned to the middle of the room, bent over, and picked up that cigarette butt. Again I studied it. Had I thrown it away? Or did I just think I did and really I threw it on the pile in the door way – then still… how did it get 12 feet away from the pile in the middle of the room? It couldn’t have bounced – and why didn’t I see it on my first two trips through the immaculate room that used to be mine and that I knew every inch of? Plus I knew I threw it away, I remembered doing it … Dad was having fun with me on his birthday! I placed the cigarette butt in the butterfly dish where I had put that red white and blue lapel ribbon and the seventy-three cents. Mom could decide what to do with them.
On with the cleaning – but definitely more distracted, yet feeling pretty special at the same time. Vacuumed, vacuumed, vacuumed, dusted, dusted, dusted, wiped, cleaned, scrubbed. Mom was going to be arriving home soon so I started wrapping up for the day. I was standing at the kitchen sink finishing washing my hands when, for a split second, out of the corner of my eye, standing right in front of the sun room door I saw Dad. He wasnt his big, scruffy, gruff self but he was there! I felt him there. I felt him the same way I felt his presence in the house when I used to come and clean for extra money when he was alive and we would sit and talk on my breaks. He was the type of person that was always very present, both in his attentiveness to his loved ones and because he’d be smoking his cigarettes, and engaging everyone in deep conversations. So I knew and will always know it was him, he was present there with me, just for a glimpse, but the feeling will last forever. (Oh how I miss you Dad! Thank you for the few extra fleeting seconds with you.)
Mom came home soon after that and I told her about the stuff – I don’t think she knew how to handle the information, she didn’t react much and the rest of the time I was there it was ‘business as usual’. After some examination she said the under-the-bed storage was dad’s stuff so I tucked that cigarette butt in it before labeling it and storing it away in the basement. She told me I could have the seventy-three cents (finders fees), and, as she was sorting laundry to be washed, we discussed what she wanted done with a few more things – on with life as normal I guess.
My Redhead Reality... 