January 7: A Few Items, Birthday Card, Letting Go

But most sorrowfully, there were a few items kept hidden in a closet that related to his son--a white leatherbound New Testament, a baptismal card, a pile of paperbacks, and a new watch, never used, that had been purchased as his Christmas present at Macy's the afternoon before his death.

I understand Edward Ives' inability to let go of these items belonging to his son.  Throughout the novel, Ives sinks deeper and deeper into depression over the murder of his son.  It's devastating to read.  He simply cannot move past this tragic loss.  He holds onto his son's belongings, frozen, unable to let go.


I think I'm a lot like Ives.  I love the sentimentality of Christmas.  The lights and music and church services.  And I have a hard time letting go.  For instance, I shared the same birth date as my friend, Ray, who passed away just before Thanksgiving.  Every year, we gave each other birthday cards, trying to find the funniest or most inappropriate.  A couple weeks ago, I found the card Ray gave me in October.  The last card.  I've been carrying it around ever since.  Every once in a while, I'll take it out and read the personal message he wrote on the inside.  It makes me smile and feel sad at the same time.

Letting go is tough.  I have all the diaries and journals saved from the time I was in middle school.  I've never reread them, probably never will.  They simply reside in a box in my closet.  Maybe, when I win the Nobel Prize in Literature, they might be valuable.  Or maybe not.  Perhaps I should pull a Franz Kafka and ask my wife or best friend to burn them after I've died, tragically, of consumption.  That way I don't have to do the letting go.

When I return to teaching next week, I'm going to put Ray's birthday card in my office.  I may even frame it.  Just to remind me of his snorting laugh, his kind spirit.  Letting go is a process, like sand being eroded from a beach.  It takes time.  Lots of it for me.

In the mean time, Saint Marty's got about 40 or 50 diaries/journals to keep hidden.

Not ready for this yet...