I am in the final phase of clearing out my parents house. I saved the garage for last because it is filled with my father’s things. He was a polymath who taught wood shop, metal shop, small engine repair, leather craft, jewelry making, and photography. Out of all those things, he really only taught me photography.
Handling his tools that he cherished so much is a very intimate experience for me that is filled with mixed emotions. He didn’t want me to work with my hands. He expected me to become a lawyer or doctor. He saw manual labor as a difficult path. He was disappointed when I chose to become a photographer he had hoped I would at least go into teaching.
We didn’t speak for over a year when I moved out and it would take a full 5 years of me working as a self employed photographer out of my apartment before he would accept it and want to open a commercial studio together. It had to close to his work so he could come down and help out in the afternoons. I ran the place full time while he came in every afternoon and weekends.
I cherish the memories of the studio we shared. My mom came to work for me at the studio doing print retouching and hand coloring of b&w photo restorations until my son was born and I needed her to help care for him.
Every evening at closing time we would share a shot of Jamison or Tullamore Dew Irish Whiskey in coffee cups so that people walking by the glass storefront wouldn’t notice. He was extremely proud of his Irish heritage. We would leave work early every year to meet up at O’Doherty’s for St. Patrick Day.
He was most proud of his marriage to my mother. He hung his wedding portraits in his classroom until the day he retired from teaching. He brought them home and hung them in the garage where he had an amazing shop that he never got around to using. He left me with all these tools I don’t know how to use to go through. And he left these portraits I don’t have room for in my home.
Some people may get angry to know they ended up at the dump. The portraits represent my parent’s life and not my own. I have these same portraits in photo albums so I am not without the memory but I will not be maintaining a shrine to my parent’s life and I will not expect my son to make a shrine to me after I am gone.
Besides, I already have a 10×20 foot storage unit filled to the brim with my parents stuff. I can’t bring myself to rent another unit just to hold on to stuff.
I remember helping my uncle clear out his mother’s home after she passed. I salvaged more than twenty photo albums that were headed to the dump. I didn’t understand why he didn’t want to keep them.
I understand now.
I am grateful to have good friends who came to help me get through the clearing of the shop. When I opened the garage door we found a small bird trapped inside. I couldn’t help but wonder if my father sent it to keep a watchful eye on me. No… seriously, I did feel my father’s presence that day.
I had coffee with a friend today. He and his wife have moved into a retirement home and are clearing out their house to get it ready to sell. I admire how deliberate they are being about doing their own downsizing and not leaving it for their children to go through.
It is easy to accumulate stuff when you don’t move. My mother lived in the same house with my father for 46 years and I am about to hit the twenty year mark for my own home.
About every five years I have made trips to Goodwill and the dump in an effort to declutter. I think the advantage of moving every few years is that you have to downsize. I know I am happiest when I am traveling light in life.
I am grateful to have a camera in my hand and an opportunity to experience life to the fullest.
Thanks pops.
