Jason Jeffery
Snap Shots of Truth
It was difficult for me to grasp the lingering concept that came into fruition while sorting
through my father's belongings. Through the personal memorabilia and mundane
artifacts I unwillingly discovered he and I were never as close as I’d imagined. Deep
within my saddened soul I knew this fact to be true but the reality of it ran me over like
a speeding car just days after my father was buried six feet beneath the cold damp
earth.
Unfortunately one of the arduous tasks of being someone's child is the noble duty of
clearing out their belongings once the person has passed on. Being an only child,
this grueling task fell onto my already overburdened shoulders. I didn't dread the
housecleaning and memory sorting task so much as I didn't understand why after so
many silent years apart and such remote distance spaced between our lives, a
canyon of echo filled emptiness between two bound souls, should I be the one
responsible.
Then again who was there to turn to when it came to fulfilling this consuming task? I
couldn't ask my mother as they'd been divorced for over thirty years now, longer
divorced then most people stayed married for. I had no siblings and my father never
remarried choosing instead to lead an adventurous single life, the ever aging
bachelor. And what did that lifestyle get him, dying alone with only six people sullenly
standing in the drizzling rain at his funeral, me being one of them, my wife another,
and four teary eyed people I didn’t know.
A few days after the lackluster funeral, my wife and I discussed in great lengths the
subject of my father’s belongings and how best to handle the situation, deciding the
least stressful course of action would be for me to head over to my father's demure
house alone while she and the kids spent the day at the park. Although our children
knew who their grandfather was, the fact he never came around to visit nor was ever
really home himself for us to visit put a hindrance on them getting to know him. With
that fact in mind we felt it best to expose them to as little in regards to the situation as
necessary, let them swing and slide and laugh and play in the warm sunlight while
they still possessed that sweet innocence.
So there I sat in the dust coated house, the air stuffy and stale since the windows
were tightly secured and the air conditioner had somehow been shut off a week ago.
The house smelt old, not sick just old like you expected ancient tombs being
discovered for the first time to smell. I hated being there with the silence hanging
heavy and thick all around, the only sound the slight ticking of a cheaply made
grandfather clock that stood in the living room. I doubted very much this house ever
held much noise throughout the years.
Not wanting to delay the task any longer I dove into the project and attempted to use
as much organization as possible. I began by creating piles in the living room
consisting of things to keep, things to trash, and things to sell. I wasn’t surprised to
see the pile of things to trash grew exponentially larger than the other two piles with
things to sell coming in at a far second. The small, almost absent pile of things to
keep consisted mainly of items I knew had been passed down in my family for
generations and I personally wished to keep them only to be able to pass the
heirlooms down to my two daughters.
It wasn’t until I’d made my way to the back of the house where my father’s nondescript
bedroom was and into his closet that the sudden realization of the distance between
my father and I struck me. While piling the outdated clothes filling his closet onto the
rickety queen sized bed he once slept on, I noticed a grey box with a shiny black lid in
the upper corner of the closet. Curiosity got the better of me and I stopped what I was
doing and pulled the box from its resting place, wiped the dust off the cover and
opened the box, revealing a cavalcade of pictures.
As I sat on the white knit bedspread to investigate my discovery the bed protested my
intrusion by squeaking its rusted springs at me. I ignored the noise and sifted through
the box of photographs that seemed to cover the span of my father’s life. There were
childhood pictures of my father, black and white, with his gleaming smile captured from
over half a century ago. One tattered photo was of him wearing a checkered shirt and
a cowboy hat holding a toy pistol in his hand, happy, young and innocent.
Scanning through the old photos actually brought a smile to my face as I saw my
father captured in time as the boy he once was. When I got to the more recent
pictures my attitude and demeanor altered, not instantly but slowly with each passing
moment, with each new picture I viewed.
I’d come upon the time in his life when I’d been born and that was when I noticed a
minor detail I’d never paid close attention to before. Throughout the entire collage of
photos stuffed away in this grey box there was not a single photograph that consisted
of me and my father together. None, not even when I was an infant. Two of the
pictures I’d come across were family portraits from when I was younger and my
parents were still married, but none were of just he and I.
I found a picture of my high school graduation with me dressed in a dark blue robe
wearing my graduation cap, tassel dangling to the side, and my mother standing
prideful beside me. No father beside me, not even in site, well not exactly, if you
looked close enough, leaned forward and squinted your eyes you could make him out
in the background talking to some unknown woman. A photo of my college
graduation, this time in a black robe and again my mother standing lovingly by my side
and where was my elusive father? A blur in the backdrop of the picture, like an
amateur photo of Bigfoot, again caught chumming it up with some woman.
Every picture I came across that included my father had him in the distance or off to
the side hitting on a plethora of unknown women. That was when it hit me. This man,
this person that unfortunately was my father never wanted the position. He came to
all the important events out of obligation not pride or love. Although each moment
captured on film was a milestone in my life they were nothing more than social
gatherings for my father to attempt to pick up single women at. Well, I can only
assume he was hitting on single women there was no way of telling from the photos if
they were married or not.
As I sifted through more photographic proof that I was nothing more than an after
thought to the man who impregnated my mother, another flash of insight scurried
across my brain. I quickly stood up, the box of photos falling absently to the floor and
the contents scattering across the carpeting, and dashed around the house looking in
the kitchen, clean from non-use more than from good housekeeping, into the dining
area with its small table complete with a fake flower bouquet as a centerpiece, and
into the living room, the only room except for the bedroom that looked lived in.
Nothing, not a single one could be found.
Each room was adorned with framed pictures, photographs taken at various events in
my father’s life, trips to other countries, camping endeavors, hiking trips, cruises, life
events he’d shared with other people. There wasn’t, however, a single framed photo
consisting of me, my wife, or our children. Looking around the bachelor pad you
couldn’t tell the man ever had a child or grandchildren for that matter. Only way you’d
discover this obviously embarrassing secret of his was if you accidentally stumbled
across his grey box of memories stored in the corner of his closet like I had.
This was the final straw. For years I’d attempted to be a part of this man’s life, to be a
son, to build a meaningful relationship only to find every effort was futile. I scooped
up the family heirlooms I wanted from the keep pile and stormed out of the house
allowing the screen door to slam against the wooden doorframe, ignoring the fury
filled tear sliding down my cheek. Tomorrow morning I’d call some local charities and
give them free range on the items inside and after that I’d pay a cleaning service to
complete the job then put the old man’s house on the market. I couldn’t be in that
house; I couldn’t stand there and be reminded that I was nothing to a man I once
idolized and loved.
It was difficult for me to grasp the lingering concept that came into fruition while sorting
through my father's belongings. Through the personal memorabilia and mundane
artifacts I unwillingly discovered he and I were never as close as I’d imagined. Deep
within my saddened soul I knew this fact to be true but the reality of it ran me over like
a speeding car just days after my father was buried six feet beneath the cold damp
earth.
Unfortunately one of the arduous tasks of being someone's child is the noble duty of
clearing out their belongings once the person has passed on. Being an only child,
this grueling task fell onto my already overburdened shoulders. I didn't dread the
housecleaning and memory sorting task so much as I didn't understand why after so
many silent years apart and such remote distance spaced between our lives, a
canyon of echo filled emptiness between two bound souls, should I be the one
responsible.
Then again who was there to turn to when it came to fulfilling this consuming task? I
couldn't ask my mother as they'd been divorced for over thirty years now, longer
divorced then most people stayed married for. I had no siblings and my father never
remarried choosing instead to lead an adventurous single life, the ever aging
bachelor. And what did that lifestyle get him, dying alone with only six people sullenly
standing in the drizzling rain at his funeral, me being one of them, my wife another,
and four teary eyed people I didn’t know.
A few days after the lackluster funeral, my wife and I discussed in great lengths the
subject of my father’s belongings and how best to handle the situation, deciding the
least stressful course of action would be for me to head over to my father's demure
house alone while she and the kids spent the day at the park. Although our children
knew who their grandfather was, the fact he never came around to visit nor was ever
really home himself for us to visit put a hindrance on them getting to know him. With
that fact in mind we felt it best to expose them to as little in regards to the situation as
necessary, let them swing and slide and laugh and play in the warm sunlight while
they still possessed that sweet innocence.
So there I sat in the dust coated house, the air stuffy and stale since the windows
were tightly secured and the air conditioner had somehow been shut off a week ago.
The house smelt old, not sick just old like you expected ancient tombs being
discovered for the first time to smell. I hated being there with the silence hanging
heavy and thick all around, the only sound the slight ticking of a cheaply made
grandfather clock that stood in the living room. I doubted very much this house ever
held much noise throughout the years.
Not wanting to delay the task any longer I dove into the project and attempted to use
as much organization as possible. I began by creating piles in the living room
consisting of things to keep, things to trash, and things to sell. I wasn’t surprised to
see the pile of things to trash grew exponentially larger than the other two piles with
things to sell coming in at a far second. The small, almost absent pile of things to
keep consisted mainly of items I knew had been passed down in my family for
generations and I personally wished to keep them only to be able to pass the
heirlooms down to my two daughters.
It wasn’t until I’d made my way to the back of the house where my father’s nondescript
bedroom was and into his closet that the sudden realization of the distance between
my father and I struck me. While piling the outdated clothes filling his closet onto the
rickety queen sized bed he once slept on, I noticed a grey box with a shiny black lid in
the upper corner of the closet. Curiosity got the better of me and I stopped what I was
doing and pulled the box from its resting place, wiped the dust off the cover and
opened the box, revealing a cavalcade of pictures.
As I sat on the white knit bedspread to investigate my discovery the bed protested my
intrusion by squeaking its rusted springs at me. I ignored the noise and sifted through
the box of photographs that seemed to cover the span of my father’s life. There were
childhood pictures of my father, black and white, with his gleaming smile captured from
over half a century ago. One tattered photo was of him wearing a checkered shirt and
a cowboy hat holding a toy pistol in his hand, happy, young and innocent.
Scanning through the old photos actually brought a smile to my face as I saw my
father captured in time as the boy he once was. When I got to the more recent
pictures my attitude and demeanor altered, not instantly but slowly with each passing
moment, with each new picture I viewed.
I’d come upon the time in his life when I’d been born and that was when I noticed a
minor detail I’d never paid close attention to before. Throughout the entire collage of
photos stuffed away in this grey box there was not a single photograph that consisted
of me and my father together. None, not even when I was an infant. Two of the
pictures I’d come across were family portraits from when I was younger and my
parents were still married, but none were of just he and I.
I found a picture of my high school graduation with me dressed in a dark blue robe
wearing my graduation cap, tassel dangling to the side, and my mother standing
prideful beside me. No father beside me, not even in site, well not exactly, if you
looked close enough, leaned forward and squinted your eyes you could make him out
in the background talking to some unknown woman. A photo of my college
graduation, this time in a black robe and again my mother standing lovingly by my side
and where was my elusive father? A blur in the backdrop of the picture, like an
amateur photo of Bigfoot, again caught chumming it up with some woman.
Every picture I came across that included my father had him in the distance or off to
the side hitting on a plethora of unknown women. That was when it hit me. This man,
this person that unfortunately was my father never wanted the position. He came to
all the important events out of obligation not pride or love. Although each moment
captured on film was a milestone in my life they were nothing more than social
gatherings for my father to attempt to pick up single women at. Well, I can only
assume he was hitting on single women there was no way of telling from the photos if
they were married or not.
As I sifted through more photographic proof that I was nothing more than an after
thought to the man who impregnated my mother, another flash of insight scurried
across my brain. I quickly stood up, the box of photos falling absently to the floor and
the contents scattering across the carpeting, and dashed around the house looking in
the kitchen, clean from non-use more than from good housekeeping, into the dining
area with its small table complete with a fake flower bouquet as a centerpiece, and
into the living room, the only room except for the bedroom that looked lived in.
Nothing, not a single one could be found.
Each room was adorned with framed pictures, photographs taken at various events in
my father’s life, trips to other countries, camping endeavors, hiking trips, cruises, life
events he’d shared with other people. There wasn’t, however, a single framed photo
consisting of me, my wife, or our children. Looking around the bachelor pad you
couldn’t tell the man ever had a child or grandchildren for that matter. Only way you’d
discover this obviously embarrassing secret of his was if you accidentally stumbled
across his grey box of memories stored in the corner of his closet like I had.
This was the final straw. For years I’d attempted to be a part of this man’s life, to be a
son, to build a meaningful relationship only to find every effort was futile. I scooped
up the family heirlooms I wanted from the keep pile and stormed out of the house
allowing the screen door to slam against the wooden doorframe, ignoring the fury
filled tear sliding down my cheek. Tomorrow morning I’d call some local charities and
give them free range on the items inside and after that I’d pay a cleaning service to
complete the job then put the old man’s house on the market. I couldn’t be in that
house; I couldn’t stand there and be reminded that I was nothing to a man I once
idolized and loved.
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Jason Jeffery resides in Florida with his wife and three kids. His stories
have been published in various e-zines and magazines and his first
novel entitled "Demon Inside and Out" is set for release this year by
Asylett Press.
"Demon Inside and Out" is the story of a man attempting to stop
himself from becoming the demon he thinks he truly is. Currently Jason
is writing the follow-up to "Demon."
have been published in various e-zines and magazines and his first
novel entitled "Demon Inside and Out" is set for release this year by
Asylett Press.
"Demon Inside and Out" is the story of a man attempting to stop
himself from becoming the demon he thinks he truly is. Currently Jason
is writing the follow-up to "Demon."
