Cotton swabs and pillowcases. My dad has an abundance of those things. Some (me?) might say an overabundance. He has two ears and two sets of sheets. Those ears may potentially be extremely clean when laid upon an ever-changing array of pillow coverings. I discovered this over the last week while quietly cleaning out various drawers and cabinets in preparation for his Monday move. Quietly because I was doing this work while he napped in his favorite chair, which gave me the span of afternoons to move things into the Rocket 88 for relocation or into the trash bin for recycling, etc. There was a novel that came out last year(?) about a woman who moves her belongings out of the house she shares with her husband and child so incrementally that they never notice until one day she’s entirely gone. Erased from where she’d once been. I wish to G-D I could remember the name of it so I could link, then read, it. (If anyone knows, please post in the comments.) Any-ways, I feel a little like that’s what’s happening under my dad’s nose, except he’s actually the one soon surrounded by new walls.

I very stealthily crept out the door taking bags of toilet paper (another thing he has a lot of … pandemic leftovers?) and paper towels but also the right side of a closet that held sports coats much like the ones in the photos above and below. Navy blue was a favorite but also camel and a houndstooth one as well. Very 70s and 80s. Still in good condition. Dusty but a reminder of his dapper style. One I’ve known so well that belies the fact he’s been wearing the same pair of sweatpants for a solid week now. And then there are hats, one that he wore at my wedding back in 2000 that’s still in beautiful shape even as that marriage dissolved almost 15 years ago. A hat he bought in NY on a trip when it was very extremely cold because it was December. A fuzzy knit number that I recently pulled out and put on his noggin a couple of months ago after he’d mistakenly(?) turned off the heat in his apartment and I’d found him freezing and shaking and put him back to bed with that hat on his head so he’d get warm. Then there is the Sherlock-style cap with ear flaps that maybe I bought him on a trip to the UK a place I know he’d always wanted to visit but never has. All of those have made the trip to the new place. None of them will be noticed missing in this particular moment.

There was also the stuff found inside drawers that told stories. The wand-like cat toy in the bedside table that belonged to his tabby, Agatha, who died almost 10 years ago. The plastic handle chewed on as if once the thing had been waved around sufficiently, it was then dropped on the ground for her to just play with it on her own because he probably had a martini to mix or a book to read. All the name tags from when he worked at the Yucaipa golf course, those early morning hours when he’d go out on the green and shoo away the geese, make sure the starting times were set for the first foursomes to get the day started. The place they called him Dean-o. He also has a lot of sunglasses. Well, I have a lot of sunglasses too, so maybe that’s just a Spencer thing. There are shoes he’ll not wear again. There’s a fancy Parisian bathrobe, which I packed up and hung in his new closet because why not? And a lot of ties. Wide ties all. I recognize many of them from pictures and dinners out with him. If they could talk there would be stories of golf tournaments, jazz clubs, dates of all sorts. I’m all ears. Cotton swabs notwithstanding.

Now, I’m off to quietly rediscover more moments in his life although today we’re sitting on the porch and I’ll ask questions rather than read into hidden treasures.