Cataloging Memories...
Cataloging Memories...
This week we, meaning myself, my daughter, and my son will be making a trip down to Tennessee. This is not a pleasure trip that we travel—this is one of those trips everyone must take at some point in their life, but dread the idea, and hope to put off as long as possible. Our final destination in Tennessee will be a storage unit in a town, until a few months ago, we never heard mention before. It is within the walls of this storage unit, my children, their grandparents, and their younger sister (their father’s child), will begin the daunting task of sorting through my former husband’s personal belongings. In other words, they will be “cataloging memories”…
As his apartment has been cleaned out and ‘memories’ moved to a storage unit he had rented a few months before his death, my children are at least spared seeing the place where their father took his last breath. Knowing that my former husband NEVER threw away anything, we will be looking at 45 years worth of memories crammed into a rented storage unit. Seriously this man did not throw away ANYTHING—he still has an 8-track tape player! My children and his family will have to sort through all the furniture, household items, clothes, tools, each box, crate, papers, pictures, films, etc etc etc and ‘catalog’ items. They will have to decide amongst themselves what is to be kept for sentimental value, historical value, items set aside for Salvation Army, and what personal items the kids want to keep for themselves.
My children didn’t want their father’s things auctioned off or sold via a garage sale, so they decide to go through his things themselves, each take what personal item means the most to them and give the rest to charity. I believe the girls plan on using some of his old t-shirts to have quilts made. Let’s see, my daughter has his watch—that means the most to her. My son, he wants all the home movies from the past 20+ years—memories on film. The youngest daughter talks about his little red pocketknife he promised her. All that “stuff”, all those “things” and they just want something to cling to—a way to capture memories of their father. Memories… are all they want—that is all that is left of a man’s life after 45 years.
As for me…
I was asked if there might be something I would want. It’s has been 17 years since I was his wife…and yet I was asked this question. My response to that; I want dignity and respect for the father of my children--who was a part of my life for 20+ years, a good father and a good man. As for a keepsake to recapture a memory, I have all the memories I could possibly store--cataloged in my heart.
In Loving Memory
Gregory M. McGowan, father of my children, who gave me the chance to enjoy the blessings of motherhood. Long ago he made me his wife and even though we traveled different roads, we continued to love and raise our children as one. Forever in our hearts, Greg will be deeply missed; he leaves the world his legacy…his children, his family, and those who knew and loved him.