Digest with Dad

May 25, 2013

My dad is the best. I always hang up the phone feeling good, really good. I can’t really refer to what happens on the phone as a conversation, generally it’s resembles a monologue.  If you know him at all, he’s the strong, silent type, man of few selected words. I end smiling like an clown and feel shining to the depth of my soul. The Silver Fox, his alias for a time, has my great respect. He is a whiz when it comes to car problems, like the Click guy on the radio, I can even badly mimic the odd noise and he comes up with several options to experiment with. He was a businessman in his time so we have a lot to talk about whether it is marketing or strategies or plain old gossip about the intricacies of a project gone bad…then again, it is usually I who does most of the latter. He’s not one to blather about a scandalous lout of a client but I am not above that in the least!

Dad is getting to be the age where he has to make some pretty tough decisions about where to go for the rest of his life, what to do with all of his unfinished projects (of those, there are many) and how to go about getting everything in order. Thankfully, I have experience with the process, on a professional level, assisting folks to make hard decisions about what to keep, toss (very little) give away, sell and pass along to family or friends. Once the choice is made to leave, getting down to the nitty gritty of stuff, it is afar less of an emotional roller coaster.

One of my most recent clients filled her car with the most prize possessions and told me to take care of the rest. Two weeks later, I had a folder filled with sheets from each recipient and their stories of items Gladis had contributed to their challenging lives, things that made all the difference in the world to them. One woman in particular, I’ll call her Carmen, a lovely Hispanic woman with two cute as can be children, 3 and 5 that were fleeing a domestic violence scene, bolted with the backpacks on their shoulders, one change of clothes and toothbrushes. They ended up with the beautiful vanity, newish big screen tv and VCR, stunning antique glass hutch that Carmen cried over in great joy, sharing with me she had never had anything so beautiful in her life. We were all touched and near tears, changed for the rest of our lives after knowing of her situation.