The things you left behind...

Do you ever wonder what possessions of yours people will want once you've died?

I don't mean the big things - house, car, property, expensive jewelry, the things you leave in a will. I don't even mean the smaller things that people will tell you they would like you to leave to them when you pass on - dishes, rings, a well made coat.

I mean the little things, silly objects, things you'd never think to mention in a legal document, or even think to ask for, things that only have value because they have value to someone....things with significance you never would have imagined, they were just the things you used or owned...things of yours that even they didn't know they wanted until they became the things you left behind...

What objects that I care about now, or even don't care about now, will have even lasted that long? Will I move and lose some of it? Will I split from a lover who throws some of my belongings out in spite, or keeps them as a painful reminder of mistakes not to make again? Will some of them burn in a fire?

What silly trinket of mine is going to mean something to someone when I'm gone?

Will I own a silly, crumbling straw hat that my one grandchild wants because she remembers me wearing it to her birthday?

My dancing shoes...will they look much the same as they do now - unscuffed and shiny, still with the awkward stiffness of trying to learn something new? Or will they be battered and relaxed, almost worn through with use? Will they have been worn to disintegration and replaced once? Twice? Three times? Will you be able to see the unique shape of my foot in the sole? Will I have danced for years?
...Do I get any good?

What photos will hang on the wall and lean on shelves? Do I ever even get around to printing any? Are their frames covered in dust or clean and new? Have they hung on the wall so long that the paint has been bleached around them by years of sunshine through the window?

Will the scarf I just bought new today, the narrow, sheer, white one with the yellow polka dots, be someday held to someone's tear-stained face? Will the faint smell of my perfume on the fragile cloth be breathed in by my grieving spouse? My daughter? Son?

Will there even be anyone?

Maybe there will be no one. What if there's no one left? Maybe my property will be sifted through by a kindly next door neighbour, who never knew me in my early years, never knew my whole story but was the closest thing the police could find to the next of kin. Will I have had to watch every one I love leave before me? Will I be all that's left?

Will people know right away when I'm gone? Will my loss be felt instantly, intensely? Or will it take time for someone to even notice? Will I fade quietly away...slip away unnoticed through the back?

Call Me When You Get There

Yes, I'll call you when I get there Mom,
I promise I'll be alright
I'd love to stay a little longer, but
I've gotta go, I'm losing light

Hi Mom, I'm here, I'm sorry
After I checked in and showered
I forgot I said I'd call you
I've been here about an hour

I didn't mean to make you worry
Tell Dad the car ran great
Relax now Mom, I'm sorry
My phone call was so late

Thank you for this vacation Mom,
You would not believe this bed!
I'm so grateful that you got me here
Now I'm off to rest my head

Hi Mom, I'm having so much fun!
So much to do and see
It seems I haven't thought too much
Of how you're missing me

I'll call for sure tomorrow Mom,
We'll have a nice long visit then
It's not like we won't get the chance
To talk ever again...


Hi Mom.


I'm not sure if you can hear me now...
She just called and said...

                                You're gone.

We didn't know that you'd be leaving
Or that you'd be gone so long

I promise I won't drive like this
They're coming here to take me home
God I wish I could still call you
While I'm waiting here alone

I wish I'd known that you were leaving
I wish I would have called
Though I don't know why you had to go
I know you won't come back at all

I call sometimes when Dad's not home
To hear your voice on the machine
It's all backwards now, I'm calling you
Wondering what places you're between

Can you just call me when you get there Mom?
I'm praying there's a way
That you can reach me, say you made it safe
Please tell me you're okay

I don't know the place you're going
But I know you won't return
So can you tell me all about the trip
Before the day when it's my turn?

Please tell me all about the drive
The scenery on the way
Maybe it will help me navigate
When I make the trek someday

So call me when you get there Mom,
Please, I just really need to know
That you made your journey safely
Now that you're the one to go.

Eraser

Have you ever used an entire eraser? I mean an ENTIRE eraser, right down the tiniest nub that’s impossible to hold between your fingers. I know I haven’t. Not for lack of making mistakes. I’ve condemned many an eraser to a premature death though.

I can only begin to list all the unspeakable atrocities I’ve committed against those small sections of rubber or vinyl. I used to stab them with mechanical pencils, breaking the lead off inside them and then practice “surgery” to remove the slivers. Weeks later I’d be furiously labouring over a question for school and trying to remove a mistake I’d made, and then find myself utterly bewildered when the eraser removed my answer, but replaced it with a large, scratchy scribble, due no doubt to a long-forgotten pencil lead still embedded in the rubber. Such a neglectful surgeon I was. And then the question would be forgotten for the next ten minutes as I tried again to extract the ancient shrapnel from the wound under the glaring light of my lamp, on the operating table that was my desk…

I’d cut them up into makeshift stamps. Stick thumb tacks in them and turn them into tiny pigs. Carve them up and turn them into little pretend cameras with a small pencil eraser on top for the button. Draw on them with pen. Draw on them with pencil. Chew on them. Try and melt them (a venture I would certainly not recommend, the smell is just awful). Use them as pincushions. Stab them with jackknives just for the hell of it. Throw them at my sister’s head. Poor, longsuffering member of the desk drawer.

Such a noble little object when one thinks of it. Think of all the errors in calculation, the imperfect lines in sketches, the misunderstandings in language, the rashly written notes that all would have remained etched permanent if not for this small marvel. Just a humble little rectangle of rubber, and yet it holds within it all the promise of second chances.

Spring City

I think I hate this city the most in the spring.

It’s the irony that gets me I think – in spite of the newness of the season, the warm winds of beginnings…it’s so intolerably sad here. The soft white blanket that was hiding all the old filth all winter is being pulled away in increments by the well-meaning sun as it tries to wake us from our sleep. I drag my feet over the grimy path and see the bread crumb trails of broken spirits - scattered garbage, needles, condoms, clothing in trees and bushes, lonely shoes, the head of a child’s doll. My toe catches a heavy kitchen knife with half the blade busted off and sends it spinning across the cement. I feel a bitter smile spread when it comes to rest at an angle – it looks as though someone plunged it into the sidewalk, as though they stabbed this street in the back and left it for dead.

I watch the run-down house down the block. A young boy in a grimy white t-shirt leans as far as he can out the open upstairs window and spits with impressive trajectory into the street below. Emerging from the torn screen door in bare feet, phone tucked into her shoulder, is his mother, cigarette in one hand, half-empty coffee pot in the other. She sits on the splitting boards of the step, tucks her cigarette into the corner of her mouth, and wipes her eyes with the heel of her free hand.

So intolerably sad.

I miss the springs I grew up with. I miss the first chirp of the frogs, the soothing chorus of clicks like dozens of mechanics lazily swinging their ratchets. I want to see chips of wood fall to the deck as my brother whittles little wooden boats to run in the mazes of little streams. Not the chips fall off these city children’s shoulders as they walk with heavy steps down the street, throwing their shoulders back with a practiced swagger beyond their years trying to make themselves look bigger, older, tougher, more resilient. It makes me sad. I want to leave this place.