Just a Vanilla Change 35

[Vanilla]

I spent the day today on aged pa probate, clearing the cosy flat that was home to aged pa and ma for 30 odd years.

I collected the cDs, pictures and dvds to sort through. Pictures to scan or discard, records to record or books to read. I am the family archivist it seems.

I have spent the last few days in tears.

The charity shop clearance came for the furniture and the skip was full. Clothes donated, old food to the recycle.

I stand alone in this cosy flat now empty of dreams and laughter. It is the last time that I see it as it has been sold. I touch the walls with great sadness and grief. No more will I watch football with aged pa, eat ginger biscuits and talk about urgent health matters. This symbolises more than death and loss, I don't want to let go of aged pa but I must. It is as if he whispers to me "let go". It is hard to let go of someone you love so deeply as I love aged pa, to let go of a future dream of generations around a tree, to let go of hope of just one more year of family home.

I have one more big emotional task to agree with glam sis the wording of the grave stone and to pay for that. Tomorrow I will go to the grave to talk to aged pa. Truly he was more at the cosy flat and the cold empty outside earth is not where I want to go. In the cosy flat, aged pa seems close and I can hear him and sense his laughter. Not so at his grave, although I now own the family plot. His dream of us being reunited in it on death will fail, it is not where I want to be. The grave holds 3 and will take a further 6. I can not find aged pa at his grave.

I am lost.

V