Smudges

When I stay at my Mother’s house, as I am doing now, there are at times long stretches of time where I feel that nothing is solid, not the walls, the rugs beneath my feet. The house itself seems a ghost, holding memories, saturated with times much livelier, times before grief, before change. Even the quiet is different, the absence of sound unbelievably loud.

There are times when I am here that I look for my father, that I seek out places he was, evidence of him. I open the door to the hall closet, run my finger along the sleeves of his hunting jackets hanging there. I touch the curve on the base of a brass lamp on his desk, pick up a folder with words on the tab written in his hand. In his closet, I open his shoe shine kit, touch the soft bristles of the brush, smell the polish. I swing back and forth along the memory of watching him shine his shoes.

I reach for a sweatshirt in his closet. Faded sage green with Ducks Unlimited embroidered in yellow on the front. Slipping it on, pushing the sleeves up, I wrap my arms around it, around myself. Hugging that he was once in this shirt. Holding that connection. Warm and comforted.