After

A person’s desk top can reveal a lot. Is it compulsively organized, hopelessly chaotic or something in between?

Recently Adrien and I helped my Mom move to one floor of her condo by moving nearly everything she uses to the main floor. And that included moving a desk set that was my Dad’s. Even though my Dad passed away in 2004, my Mom kept his desk upstairs in their condominium where he had worked since they moved from their Amherst home.

The desk itself was, and is, a testament to my Dad’s engineering. The top of the desk had been an unfinished door which Dad sanded, stained and refinished to a semi-gloss. He also added a strip of quarter round to the back of the door to keep things from falling behind. Before moving the desktop, I hadn’t noticed that before, but to me, it explained my Dad in a nutshell: practical AND ingenious. The desk was supported by a bookshelf - which I suspect was also finished by my Dad as the stain matched the desktop - and a 2-drawer file. Once we removed the desktop we noticed a two-inch wide strip of old tape on the top of the file cabinet and the bookcase. Thinking it was a defect we almost removed it until we realized the tape was purposely put there to stop the desktop from sliding. Practical and ingenius.

For the last 17 years (and a bit longer as toward the end of his time on Earth things were difficult for Dad) my Mom has sat at that desk doing bills and paperwork - the normal stuff of keeping a household going financially. Although it has been Mom’s job to keep track of the finances, some of my Dad’s desk items have stayed right there on that desktop.

The blotter on the desk was my Dad’s. So when we removed it from the desktop to carry it to its new home, I was surprised and delighted to find my Dad’s penmanship on a single page of a bank statement. Written in his familiar hand was “I give up”. That made me laugh out loud.

I immediately pictured my Dad sitting at the dining room table - his pre-desk desk space - every Sunday night writing checks to pay bills and balancing his checkpoint. He always chased down every single discrepancy - and I’m guessing there weren’t many as his math skills were stellar. That was a trait that he could not convince his eldest daughter to adopt. I (probably to his horror) just concede those pennies to the bank. Somehow the image of my Dad writing “I give up” on his bank statement after spending what I can imagine was an inordinate amount of time trying to get his balance to match the bank struck me as comical.

On Father’s Day 2021, I am missing my Dad as I always do. But I am treasuring who he was and how he influenced all of us. And I am grateful to have had his practical and ingenius nature in my life.