The little things

Dad,

It's the little things around the house that are killing me.  The tiny alarm clock that never worked that you insisted could function--and you got it to.  The compass I bought you for father's day, because--even though you had a terrible sense of direction--there was never anyone who had a better sense of where he was.  Pictures of you and mom that I had not seen. The goofy corn on the cob holders. Old cards. Grandpa's chess set.  The hundreds of pages of notes you prepared for your books.

We are almost done now. Bobby and I will be down once again, but we are down to the stuff on the walls and items in drawers that we can't decide yet what to do with.

The zamlers were here on Sunday. You would have loved it. I had contacted the Yiddish book center and a couple of Yiddishists like you came by to pack up the books and mail them to the center.  The woman, but the man to some extent as well, went through them all--commenting on the relative unusual nature of the finds.  There was one dictionary they were marveling over.   Others too they said were valuable and spent some time conversing in Yiddish as they looked through the volumes. You would have been happy to see your collection going to an appreciative audience. The woman asked for a copy of your books and I gave them Freud and Fargenign and the one with the songs you translated.

I'm in the living room now, glancing around, and there is still some work to do.  Lots of chatchkas around here and only about fifty baskets.

Found a note I sent to you in 1997 on father's day. It ends like this:

Last year I gave you a compass and quoted the lyrics from Les Mis. You do "know your place in the sky" and you did fill a little boy's "darkness with order and light."

What else is there to say? Thank you for holding my hand. 

Then I gave you a framed copy of the picture that is below.  I still feel the same way.  Thank you for holding my hand.

P.S. (1) Why did you keep so many rubber bands and paperclips?
        (2) I miss you.