Anniversary

A year ago today, the co-founder of this little business and my father, died of cancer. I never understood when others would talk about death anniversaries (for lack of a better term) but I get it now. A year has gone but I still find myself wanting to give him a call and ask a question or share the latest. That thing in your brain that denies the loss of someone passed months ago but now...well...it just sucks. I also came to the realization that it will just always suck. I ignorantly believed that the suckiness would go away but, as it turns out, I can never talk to him again so how could that ever stop sucking? Why didn't anyone share this part? I guess because they are trying to console so telling you that it will always suck probably wouldn't lift your spirits.

My dad loved Halloween. Wait...he didn't actually love any holiday but he seemed to enjoy Halloween more than most. I base this on the fact that he would always place some random Halloween decoration in the shop hoping that it would startle me a bit. Never did, I'm pretty manly, but I always appreciated it. After my dad died, my instinct was to just throw everything out. My sister kept asking me if I wanted any of his clothes and I just couldn't wrap my head around this. I took a couple of items so I wouldn't look like a cold hearted S.O.B. but I didn't really want them. I've heard that you shouldn't make these kind of decisions right away because you're not thinking clearly. Correct. I'd do anything to get my hands on his shop t-shirts now. The good news is that I couldn't go in his shop for at least six months so my thinking was much clearer when cleaning it out. I'm a minimalist at heart but having a handful of items takes away the blow of those extra sucky days...or makes it worse...who knows. I obviously took shop equipment but I'd be a fool not to bring his screaming Halloween rat home with me. You don't keep these things because you need more screaming Halloween rats but because it reminds you of the day you got to the shop and kept hearing a funny squeaking sound and finally found the source hiding behind some of your tooling while pops chuckled away at his desk.

One year down.