On Friday I’ll turn 52.
It’s not a landmark birthday, but it feels like more of a landmark than birthdays 40 and 50 combined.
My dad died in August within a year of my mom’s death last fall.
It has been “quite a year,” as a friend noted in the grocery store last week.
Yes, it has.
In more ways than one.
I contemplated my reply when she asked how I was doing. “You’ve sure had a lot,” she said sympathetically. She’s a family friend who knew my parents well.
It has been “a lot,” and that’s saying nothing of the arduous task of sorting through family possessions at the farm.
When I say arduous, I mean it in the sense of emotional energy required to sort mostly worthless “stuff” that represents priceless memories.
My sisters and I and our husbands are deciding on stuff to keep, stuff to sell and stuff to throw. Dad was a “keeper,” which means the “throw” pile has been much, much larger than the “keep” and “sell” piles.
Obviously we wouldn’t keep a partially rebuilt table fan or rusty auto parts, but each item that hits the dumpster feels like letting Dad go, a bit at a time.
And pieces of our childhood along with them — a childhood spent marveling at how Dad could fix or build anything.
The stuff will soon be gone, but our memories will last as long as we do.
Which is why the past year has been “a lot.”
It’s been a reminder of how fleeting time is.
Last weekend I came across original documents and signatures from 1970 when my parents bought the farm.
The yellowed documents conjured images of a young couple investing everything they had into a down payment on their dreams.
I imagined their leap of faith and high hopes for their future together.
Fast-forward 50 years, five daughters and dozens of grandkids later, and the next generation — with dreams of our own — carries on where they left off.
Fifty-two isn’t a landmark year, but it sure feels like one.
Actually, it’s been a landmark year for everyone, considering pandemic circumstances, missed opportunities and lost lives.
“I miss them, but I wouldn’t wish them back,” I told my friend in the grocery store.
Mom died in hospice before the virus hit, and Dad died peacefully at home in his sleep. Now they’re together again on the other side.
“Time stands still for no one,” I told her. “And I’m OK with where I’m at in this moment in time.”