Shortly after John passed away I often found myself sitting in front of his closet and staring at his “stuff”. There is an odd sense of comfort in having his things untouched and piled in the manner that he liked to keep it. Everything was and continues to be, exactly as he had left it. I know it has already been just over a year, but the thought of having to pack it all away is still difficult to come to terms with. This is still his house and we are still his family, so to not have his things around would not feel right. The irony in John’s accumulation of “stuff” however, is a bit of an oxymoron. While he hated useless items; particularly if they were “new,” he had a knack for taking in many items that one would see as useless and then turn it, into something new. John never liked to give many things away, especially if it held a particular sentiment or was still usable in his eyes. This is why John still has so many of his old clothes from high school and collections of random items that only he would have seen as valuable. John was also thrifty to a fault, at times his idea of a cool new find was, in fact, someone else’s garbage...literally, he could pick something up from the dump or the side of the road and “refurbish” or “repurpose” it. It always amazed me how he could transform scraps of old windows or doors into something creative and useful. John once made a side table that consisted of old ax handles for the legs and a scrap piece of wood for the top. His creative ideas brought him a lot of joy and he was genuinely proud of making something old into something new. In our living room, an old French door hangs on the wall where John distressed and painted it so that he could put the boys baby pictures behind the panes of glass. He took joy in these transformations and I was a fan of his work…for the most part.
On September 2, 2107, “Big” Jack passed away peacefully…just one day after John left us a year ago…. He was the master of collecting, creating, transforming, rebuilding and reusing things; which is why John came by this fascination of his quite honestly. His dad definitely sparked his knack for finding a purpose for the most unlikely of items. It has been a sad time for all of us in the midst of still grieving John. The absence of them both is still a very difficult realization to wake up to each day, however, knowing that father and sons are together again can sometimes lessen the sting. Who knows what they are up to now that they are together again.
I know that the boys are young, but they are still old enough to remember that their dad and grandpa had these qualities about them. Perhaps one day, one of them will carry on this legacy. There is a shed in our yard full of “treasures” that John believed had the potential to be something great, something amazing, and for sure something useful, maybe someday they will be. In the meantime, John's things remain as a comforting reminder of the life we all shared with him.
