My Life Begins Again

Packing or unpacking? Some people say that unpacking in a new place, whether it be a house, apartment, or even a rented room, was like starting over. You pick out your favorite trinkets, art, or even kitchen bowls, and find a place to put them. Some place where they will mean something, where they will welcome you to your new home, a place where they will put you at peace.

But it is not the unpacking that is the hardest. It is the packing. That is where you find things that you thought you had lost, where your life comes into focus. Not only are you packing up your belongings, and sometimes other people’s belongings as well, you are packing up memories and saying goodbye to a life that is, for better or for worse, changing, where secrets are discovered. That is what I found out the hard way, and I would never be the same.

The house was an old one-story house, bordered by stone, not brick, with plastered and painted walls, hardwood floors, and a large basement complete with a coal bin. My grandfather and grandmother lived here, my father, their only child, had lived next door with his wife, my mother, and me. The house was built in the early 1900s and the stone that covered it, came from the city jail torn down in 1910.

But that was then, this is now. The house became my father’s after my grandparents had passed, and since his untimely death from cancer, two months ago, the house was now mine. I wasn’t married, nor likely to be, and now I was truly alone. My father was my only family, my mother long since gone.

My mother was long remembered by me as a long-haired redhead with a funny smile, a giggling laugh, and hard blue eyes that could tell you when you were doing something wrong. She had left us when I was only nine. My father had come home from the office to the house where I was staying with my grandparents. That day, a day I will never forget, he came into the bedroom that I called my own, even though I don’t believe that I ever slept there. He sat me down, my grandfather and grandmother standing behind him, tears in their eyes, and told me the words that resonated in my heart.

“Your mother is gone, Junior. She is not coming back. You must remember, always remember, that she loves you so much.”

Calling me Junior was his way of connecting. My name is Charles Slaughter Jr., named after him of course. I remember crying and crying, asking him where she was? He just shook his head and didn’t say anything more. It was only later that I was told what had happened. She had been killed walking down main street when a truck had blown a tire and swerved onto the sidewalk. She had died instantly, according to the doctor. I never got to see her again.

That was twenty years ago. When I graduated from High School, I moved away to go to college, got a degree in accounting, and made a new life a hundred miles away. Did I blame my father for my mother being dead? Maybe. Maybe he should have picked her up early, not letting her walk on her own. Did I blame her for leaving me, for her life ending that way? I think I loved her too much for that, and the longer she was gone, it seemed the more I loved her.

When my grandfather and grandmother passed away, my father was left here all alone. Still, I couldn't come back, I could barely visit, the memories being too painful. Then a year ago, he had been diagnosed with cancer, and suddenly I had no choice. I returned home, moved into the house that was a little bit of heaven and a little bit of hell to me. I took care of my father as he steadily declined. At times, I got the impression he wanted to tell me something, some secret, but nothing ever happened. Then he was gone as well.

With help from his friends, I planned his funeral and said goodbye. My life was now over. That life anyway. Now the packing. Now was the time to start again. My plan was to get rid of everything except those few pictures that did not bring sad memories. There were very few. There would be no estate sale, not handing out objects to the few relatives that were left. Everything would be given to whatever charity or thrift store that was willing to pick it up.

He died on a Friday night. Two weeks later everything was done. I was done. There was no longer anything to keep me here. It was a Saturday morning when I started going through the house. I started in the living room. A couch, at least ten years old with burnt spots from my father’s cigarettes, bordered the front windows. A large, flowered chair sat across from it with a round table in between covered with stacks of magazines well out of date.

The den was red brick with pictures taken at football games plastered across the hall. My father was much more of a sports fan than I had become. A large television hung on the end wall facing a green pleather couch. Making my way through the small door, I entered the kitchen that needed a lot of updating and passed by the first bathroom.

 Finally, I walked into my father’s bedroom. Minimalist in its decorations, just like the rest of the house, his Queen-size bed was covered by a flowered, red blanket with an end table and lamp on one side and curtained windows on the other. A small television sat on a dresser painted white and scratched at every drawer at the other end of the room. To the left of the dresser was a black hand painted classic bookcase with gold accents, my father’s favorite piece of furniture. The top was flat with a blue and white elegant looking vase in the middle. Some books, most of which I had read, generic stationery, and photographs in bronze, maple, or rustic black frames filled the shelves.

One caught my eye as it always did. It was gold lined with two pictures, side by side. The photographs were of me in graduation gowns, the one on the left from when I finished High School, the one on the right was college. I reached for it, wanting to hold it. Surprisingly, I had never held it before. My father had been adamant about no one touching the pictures. Even when we had a cleaning service, they were not allowed to clean this piece of furniture. I reached for it and picked it up, my eyes fixated on the images in front of me, images of a younger, more hopeful me at different times of my life.

Suddenly there was a loud bang as the back of the shelf casing fell forward, knocking over the rest of the pictures, sending some scattering to the floor. I was so shocked by what I saw, I didn’t even notice if any of the pictures were damaged. Standing there, propped against the wall, was a wooden box, It was small, about nine-by-nine inches with a walnut finish and a picture of a woman on the front. I recognized it as an urn intended to hold the ashes of a loved one, but who’s ashes?

I reached for it and an envelope fell flat from behind it. It had my name on it. My hands shaking, I reached for and cautiously opened it.

“Chocs,” the letter began. Chocs was the name my father had called me until I finished sixth grade. It came from his unending affinity for chocolate and resulted in a lot of kidding from my friends. I continued reading.

“Chocs, if you are reading this, then I am most likely, hopefully, in a better place and also hopefully, not alone. You won’t recognize the picture on this container, I am sure. It is your mother, not the mother you know, but your real mother. A mother who loved you as much as anyone did, but one who died right after you were born. Her name was Adeline Murphy, always Addie to me. You may also recognize the container as an urn of ashes. These are your mother’s ashes.”

I looked away for a minute. How could this be? Why didn’t anyone tell me?

“I know that this is a shock to you,” the letter continued. “I meant to tell you, but when I fell in love with and married Emily, a little more than a year later, it was almost like we had come full circle. I had hope again, you had a mother again. You were about fifteen months old, and we had no family to speak of except for my mother and father. I begged them not to tell you. Your mother had no family, no siblings, no parents. There was no one on her side of the family to maintain a relationship with. I couldn't handle telling you. I still missed her too much and I didn’t want you to miss someone you had never known. We lived in Fort Worth at the time, but I found a job and we moved to Tennessee where we are now. As you know, my parents were here so it was a gathering of the clan, so to speak. Emily and I lived here until she also passed away, a fact that you know too well. I know I should have told you about Addie, but again, I could not. You loved Emily so much and I didn’t want anything to dampen your feelings for or memory of her. She was your mother in every other sense except giving birth to you. Your mother has never been buried; I hope that you will take care of that so that we will all be together again.”

I sat down on the wooden chair next to a small round maple bar table standing at the edge of the bed. I put the letter down, tears rolling down my cheek. Packing up would be different now. Instead of things to get rid of, I would be looking for things to keep. After all, this was no longer my dad’s life, it was mine. A life that had long been missing something important. Everyone's life has to begin again sometimes. Now it was my turn.