All right, all right. A few eagle-eyed commenters that don’t like to play by the rules have revealed the true meaning behind the clues. And while traveling to exotic locales, zombie hunting and selling hippie children to fund world saving endeavors were all very, very close, the truth is that we’re moving across town. (Kind of anticlimactic, huh? Wait ’til I break the news that I don’t actually have the right to give away Paris.)

Well, it might not be world ending or life changing for you, but for me it’s been a pretty big dealio. Our current house and I have had our disagreements from time to time, but this has been my kids’ childhood home. They were 6, 4 and 2 when we moved in here, and now they’re 15, 12 and 10. Sure, they still have some growing to do, but no one is toddling about anymore. This was it, this was the place where all that happened. Lost teeth, bicycles without training wheels, summers swimming in the backyard, scribbles on the walls when Mom wasn’t looking, birthday parties and memorials, too – we did eight years of growing here. Leaving it behind is breaking my heart a little.

I’m going to continue to be a bit sketchy with the details because (for a blogger) I know how to be discreet, but you can’t really know how this all came down inside my head without knowing that less than a month ago moving was the farthest thing from our minds. This was an entirely unexpected turn of events, and also, I need to add, not due to anything we’ve done. We are rockstar renters. You wish you could be as good as we are at renting. But circumstances did what they sometimes do, and we had to make some changes accordingly. And rather quickly.

Luckily we did, however, almost immediately stumble across something that feels like a perfect fit. In fact, the new place has even more living space than our current house does, and in an arrangement that feels like it will suit our needs much better. Like anything, there are trade-offs, but luckily it seems like everything we’re having to give up are things that I didn’t really like having all that much anyway.

Once we have the keys and I can take some real pictures I’m sure I’ll be talking new apartment here very soon. Right now, though, all is chaos and boxes. I’m actually crazy proud of us and what we’ve accomplished around here in such a short period of time. Even in a rush we’ve sorted through everything – and that is 2 car garage worth of everything, tucked away by a husband whose super power is getting a ton of things to fit in places where, by all that is natural and holy, they should never be able to fit.

This is the corner where everything that we’re taking with us goes.

This is the corner for all the things that will go into the garage sale.

It’s been difficult, though, the worst by far being the several nights I spent sorting through boxes of things that belonged to my father. Things we tucked away 8 years ago in anticipation of a day when I would feel strong enough to deal with them. The irony is that a year ago I could’ve sorted through all of it pretty easily, but now that Mom is gone, too, it’s all become poignant and painful and terribly heavy again. The love letters and greeting cards were hard to take, of course (Dad, hoarder at heart, kept every single greeting card he ever received. I, child of a hoarder, was compelled to sort through every last one.) But probably the most painful of all was a completely random post-it note pad. Half-used, the top-most sheet had a note in my mother’s handwriting promising a quick return from a jaunt to Safeway. Something about just how ordinary everyday it is seems to be what makes it so sad.

This is another thing that marks this house, our time here has been book-ended by deaths. Dad died two months after we moved in, Mom died 10 months before we left. Our new apartment will be the first place I’ll live that neither will see.

I’m 38 years old today, and continuing to do the best that I can. I think this fresh start will be a beautiful thing, and I’m excited to begin the next stage of my life. But, like any change that’s worthwhile, it hurts like hell, too. I would probably curl up in a little ball if I thought about it too much, but right now? I have too much packing to do.

my father moved through dooms of love
e.e. cummings

my father moved through dooms of love
through sames of am through haves of give,
singing each morning out of each night
my father moved through depths of height

this motionless forgetful where
turned at his glance to shining here;
that if(so timid air is firm)
under his eyes would stir and squirm

newly as from unburied which
floats the first who,his april touch
drove sleeping selves to swarm their fates
woke dreamers to their ghostly roots

and should some why completely weep
my father’s fingers brought her sleep:
vainly no smallest voice might cry
for he could feel the mountains grow.

Lifting the valleys of the sea
my father moved through griefs of joy;
praising a forehead he called the moon
singing desire into begin

joy was his song and joy so pure
a heart of star by him could steer
and pure so now and now so yes
the wrists of twilight would rejoice

keen as midsummer’s keen beyond
conceiving mind of sun will stand,
so strictly(over utmost him
so hugely)stood my father’s dream

his flesh was flesh his blood was blood:
no hungry man but wished him food;
no cripple wouldn’t creep one mile
uphill to only see him smile.

Scorning the pomp of must and shall
my father moved through dooms of feel;
his anger was as right as rain
his pity was as green as grain

septembering arms of year extend
less humbly wealth to foe and friend
than he to foolish and to wise
offered immeasurable is

proudly and(by octobering flame
beckoned)as earth will downward climb,
so naked for immortal work
his shoulders marched against the dark

his sorrow was as true as bread:
no liar looked him in the head;
if every friend became his foe
he’d laugh and build a world with snow.

My father moved through theys of we,
singing each new leaf out of each tree
(and every child was sure that spring
danced when she heard my father sing)

then let men kill which cannot share,
let blood and flesh be mud and mire,
scheming imagine,passion willed,
freedom a drug that’s bought and sold

giving to steal and cruel kind,
a heart to fear,to doubt a mind,
to differ a disease of same,
conform the pinnacle of am

though dull were all we taste as bright,
bitter all utterly things sweet,
maggoty minus and dumb death
all we inherit,all bequeath

and nothing quite so least as truth
—i say though hate were why man breathe—
because my father lived his soul
love is the whole and more than all

Tomorrow is my father’s death day anniversary. Anticipation being what it is, the lead up is usually more difficult than the actual day will likely be for me. The internal countdown begins on its own – instigated, I suspect, by the first signs of spring – and I don’t become wholly aware that it’s happening until I’m very close to letting out the breath I hadn’t meant to be holding.

“Tell everybody waiting for superman…”

And her father across town, sitting in his recliner, maybe, watching television – age 70 but only just beginning to show the withering of old age, there around the edges. Hardly an old man yet. I think he knows he’s failing, but she’s been rebuffing his weak attempts to talk to her about it, and he’s been letting her. He fools himself into thinking there’s still time, but there isn’t. His last day now, but he doesn’t know it yet; her last chance but she’s busy thinking of other things while folding the laundry.

“…that they should try to hold on, best they can -”

Sometimes I think of her and I want to warn her, sometimes I want to smack her. Him, too. This year they both just feel so distant to me. And so now I grieve the grieving. I miss missing my father. He’s faded so far away.

“He hasn’t dropped them, forgot them or anything.
It’s just too heavy for superman to lift.”

I’ve been feeling pretty quiet lately, as evidenced by the mostly recycled blog posts that have been popping up here this month. Partly I think it’s exhaustion from a crazy-busy year finally catching up with me and partly I’m still mourning the loss of one of my muses. But mostly my brain is still back in October and even the snow and the aisles filled with glittery things can’t quite convince me that it’s holiday time again.

But the calendar says that it is, whether I’m in the mood for it or not. And it wouldn’t truly be the holiday season for me without a traditional retelling of the family Christmas Tree Story. Made up of a combination of some of my favorite stories as told by my father about his childhood. Some would call it history, some would call it fish stories; regardless, it’s part of my heritage just like the Great-Grandpa who was hung for stealing horses and the Great-Grandma who hitched herself to the plow when the mule fell over dead.

And unlike Great-Grandpa and Great-Grandma, I’ve seen the proof of this story with my own eyes.

From family mythology:

In Which I Incriminate my Father for the Sake of Entertainment

Or the time when he was sitting with his fellow students during church service, determined to be quiet and obedient and generally good. But Peter Pester, the boy behind him, kept tugging at his shirt and whispering about playing marbles later on, and wouldn’t stop no matter how he was ignored, until finally out of frustration the boy stood up and hit Peter soundly over the head with his prayer book. The priest was not pleased.

And then there was the day he asked to be excused from class to use the bathroom. Having a few moments of respite from schoolwork and wanting to make the most of it, he somehow found himself wandering into the church and up the stairs of the steeple. How was he to know that he would be swinging from testing the integrity of the clock hands at the very moment his teacher, Sister Tyrannosaurus, looked out the window and across the street to the church to see what time it was? Sister was not pleased.

Perhaps he just had bad luck.

But it was Christmas time again, a time of peace and goodwill, and perhaps, second chances. And it did indeed look promising when the boy was chosen to pick the Christmas Tree for that self-same pageant that had gone so wrong for him in times past. The boy was determined. This would be the most perfect, most magnificent Christmas tree anyone had ever seen. He spent long hours scouring the hillsides for the most flawlessly formed pine tree in all of creation. And in those days there were plenty of hillsides to scour. But nothing he saw was nearly good enough.

Just when the boy was on the brink of despair, just as he was close to resigning himself to another failure, just another instance of the worst luck ever known to man or boy, he found it. The one. The most perfect, most magnificent tree he had ever seen. (And by then he had seen quite a few.) With delight born out of the feeling of a job well done, of the tides finally turning, of bad luck at last turning to good, the boy chopped down the tree.

And it was perfect, and it was magnificent, and everyone said so, and they were all pleased. And no one ever made the connection between the Pageant’s lovely Christmas tree that year, and the town gossip about how some callous vandal had chopped down one of the two super-expensive, ultra-fancy, perfectly-magnificent imported trees recently donated and planted on the Abbey grounds.

And what of our boy? Oh yes, he heard the gossip and the accompanying uproar. So, did he step forward, in a George Washington sort of way, proclaiming loudly “I cannot tell a lie?” I’m afraid not. Instead he kept very quiet, and later in life had a great story to tell that amused his children with each retelling and every new embellishment, and perhaps he carried a bit of the guilt that Catholics are so famous for. But maybe in some small way our unlucky boy also felt a bit vindicated. After all, he was never caught. Perhaps his luck had turned, after all.

by Timothy Buchholz, my Dad

Memories of my little girl
following along behind her Daddy,
awed at the wonder of nature,
the wonder of the world.

And her cries of delight
at discovering the beautiful little yellow flowers
that would spring up all over the lawn and garden
at the first signs of spring,
seemingly overnight.

There is nothing that can compare
with the sounds of delight,
and the wondrous look in the eyes of a child,
as they gather these treasures,
as a gift to those they love most.
A special time.

But, as with all things,
Reality sets in,
and wanting your daughter
to learn of things of nature and the world
you explain to her that these pretty flowers are weeds,
weeds that spread,
and are a nuisance to the gardener and homeowner.

The look you get should be censored
and no amount of logic can convince her
that dandelions are anything but
the most beautiful flower in the world.
And after many lovely bouquets from that little girl
with that special look in her eyes,
you begin to think so, too.

Life goes on
you continue fighting dandelions
though not so vigorously
once in awhile allowing a few to survive
and even pretending you don’t see
her blowing the seed pods in the air.
Content to know the little aggravation caused you
is worth the happiness it brings her.

She’s a young lady now
maturing
blossoming in her own right
caught up in the challenge
of going from teen to young adult
and sometimes you feel
left out, passed by.

Today
a beautiful sunny early spring day
driving down the street,
I saw two little girls on a hillside
picking boquets of dandelions
and as I passed by
I heard their delightful cries
and saw the wondrous look in their eyes.

And in my eyes there were tears as I thought
Why does the wonder flee,
the look disappear,
why can’t they keep it forever?

A short time later I related this feeling to my daughter
and she looked at me, smiling -
gently touched my shoulder and said
“Daddy, I won’t do that.
I won’t lose that feeling.”

And as I looked in her eyes
I saw that special look,
that look of wonder
and suddenly I knew what sometimes isn’t spoken.

There will always be
a spot in her heart full of Spring,
Sunshine,
Dandelions,
and Me.

In honor of what would have been my father’s 77th birthday, here are some things I’d say to him if I had the chance:

I wish you could see your granddaughter eating fried chicken. She does you proud. She would have played H.O.R.S.E. at the backyard hoop with you, too.

Khy still misses you. He’ll always miss you. And Nicky doesn’t remember you but he has your heart. It matches the ears.

I forgive you for the inherited leg cramps and acid reflux.

You know, you really should have warned me that Mom was crazy. I get that it was in your own best interest and maybe even that of the family unit for you to stay quiet about it, but a little preparation would have been nice.

It wasn’t you, your family was crap. You kept trying to reach out to them as you got older, wanting to establish some kind of a relationship before it was too late, and when they didn’t reciprocate or their reception was lukewarm, I know you took it personally. But really, they just couldn’t be bothered, and it was their loss.

I don’t know if you were a good father to David or Patrick, or even Lisa and Jim, but you were a good father to me. I actually can’t imagine better.

When you were dying and I whispered in your ear that we would be okay without you, I was lying.

We’re still not okay.

I’m sorry I didn’t stay to watch you die. Everyone was there gathered around watching us watching you and I’m sure they thought it was the loving and supportive thing to do, but it was really awful. I was a coward and I ran. I would have come back but you didn’t wait.

I’m sorry about my yard. Kind of. Some times I feel badly that it has so many weeds and looks terrible and that I’m the house on the block you would have shaken your head and sighed over if we were neighbors, and sometimes I think you were a terrible snob, Dad, and maybe I’m your garden karma.

Sometimes I think you’ve haunted me with dandelions.

Every once in a while when I kill a spider, I’m struck with the insane but unshakable thought that maybe it was you reincarnated and trying to watch out for me. If it was, maybe you should try something besides a spider next time, because that’s never going to work.

I wish you hadn’t been so grumpy. I wish I hadn’t been so impatient. I wish I had listened, really listened, that last time on the phone when you tried to talk to me about important things, instead of folding laundry and half-listening as you talked.

And I wish we had talked, really talked, about even more important things more often.

I want to believe that you carry on somewhere, in a form that I would recognize, in a form that would recognize me. But I can’t picture you sitting on a cloud strumming idly on a harp or having lunch with Johnny Cash and George Carlin or even mowing the grass of some heavenly yard. (For the record, I don’t imagine you consumed in the fiery flames of some kind of hell, either.) But wherever you are, if you are, I hope you’ve found some peace and I hope that your hands are still rough and scarred and strong and that I’ll get to hold one of them in mine again someday.

Thank you for the bowls of snow.

Thank you for the philosophical talks, the companionable silence, the shared temporary escapes from family functions.

Thank you for loaning me God. And thank you for showing me every day of your life that it’s possible for a person to be strong and honorable at the same time he’s plagued by doubts and flaws.

Thank you for your poetic heart, for your hard won sobriety, and for the junk you used to bring me that you’d found in dumpsters and knew I would love.

Thank you for kraut dogs. And happy Sundays. And trips to the dump, and the WWF, and fishing for rainbow trout.

Thank you for always, without apology, getting lost on road trips because you were too busy talking to pay attention to where you were supposed to turn.

Thank you for the stories.

Thank you for all of the many, many times that you pretended not to notice as I blew dandelion seeds all over your perfect yard. Thank you for loving the weeds I brought into your life and recognizing them as flowers. Eventually.

Thank you for always looking at me with love in your eyes.

When Dad died, the greater part of the responsibility for arrangements fell to me, and I was entirely out of my depth. My husband and friends were a great help – I couldn’t have made it through without them. But there were some things they couldn’t walk me through, including answering the funeral home’s questions for the obituary. I was a deer caught in headlights, barely capable of spelling my father’s name at that point in time, let alone remembering vital pieces of his life. The result was disappointing, and while I think he would have understood, he also deserved a lot better. This is my attempt to make it up to him.

April 4, 2002
Timothy J. Buchholz, beloved husband, father and grandfather, dies at 70
By Kelly R. Buchholz

A tall man with a deep, rumbling voice, he could sometimes be an imposing presence until you saw him jumping through piles of leaves with his grandchildren, or making up silly songs to make them smile.

“Meet me at Fred Meyer, changing a bicycle tire, with my pants on fire -
Going to Freddy’s in my underpants!” was a family favorite.

A recovering alcoholic just short of his 20th year of sobriety, he went from being a mild menace to society in his younger years to achieving in his later years – if not exactly the status of a pillar of said society, at least a force for good within it. Committed work in the mental health field along with volunteering in the community and a constant endeavor to improve himself marked the latter part of his life.

Something of a dreamer with a romantic heart, Timothy never met a man (or woman, or child, or squirrel) he didn’t like (though he did hate opossums) and couldn’t spend an hour chatting with no matter how late he might be running.

In 1998 he wrote, “I have a great appetite for life. I love the early morning. The sunrise, nature awakening. I love late night, the stillness, the quiet. I love to read during this time, or just sit or walk. Two of my most memorable sights – witnessing the sunrise while flying from Oklahoma City to Dallas, Texas. Passing another ship in the night in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Words cannot describe the feeling – tranquility, power and awe.”

Timothy James Patrick Joseph Buchholz (christened Timothy James, he would be given the middle name Patrick later by a beloved but fearsome grandmother who thought it was a better name than James. Joseph was his confirmation name) was born in Mt. Angel, Oregon. His mother, Katherine, was born 2 months after her German parents immigrated to Illinois, and his father, Paul, was born on the S.S. Palatia as it sailed between Hamburg, Germany and New York in 1898. At the time of Timothy’s birth, his father was working as a constable, a bartender, and also did odd jobs for the local funeral home, while his mother worked part time keeping books for the local church.

The second son of five children in a Catholic family, Timothy later claimed that his father had wanted a girl, his brother had wanted a dog, but his mother loved him. For a time Timothy entertained thoughts of priesthood, as was expected, until he realized how much he liked girls. He and his older brother spent most of their childhood plotting to kill one another. Neither succeeded.

About his early years he once wrote, “There are many stories about me, most commencing with my grammar school years. Pre-grammar school the most outstanding was at the age of approximately 2, I escaped from my ‘jail’ called a crib, by falling over the railing (I was not graceful) went looking for my mother (who supposedly was in the next room). When I did not find her next door at my grandmothers, I began to walk to my uncles, a distance of approximately 5 miles. I was attired in diapers. I was joined by a group of high school girls who promptly returned me home. This was my first escape attempt and my first betrayal by the opposite sex.”

After relocating to the Hillsboro area where his father found work, though shy, he discovered a gift for both basketball and bullshitting in high school. At graduation he was 1 credit short of receiving his diploma. When informed that he would be required to complete another semester, he chose instead to join the military. His mother went on to take the typing class he lacked and sign his name to it on the sly so that he would be a high school graduate.

His father was a proud veteran of the Marine Corp, so Timothy naturally chose to join the Army. He served from 1949-1952, stationed mainly in Okinawa and Korea. After his discharge he returned home “bitter and disillusioned” and spent a year drinking and causing trouble. He signed up for the army a second time in 1953, partially to get away from the local police who had gotten to know him by name – particularly after he ran over the foot of an officer. Also, for the travel. He served from 1953 until 1958, mainly in Germany.

After leaving the military he put his bullshitting skills to fine use, holding assorted positions as a salesman of various things from men’s clothing to insurance. He finally settled firmly into retail and with moves to New Mexico and then Oklahoma, he eventually worked his way up to supervising 12 stores for Senack Shoe Co. before chucking it all in 1983 in favor of flowers and sobriety.

While working for a time as an aide in the same Drug and Alcohol unit that helped him achieve his own sobriety on December 7, 1982, Timothy took a course in Horticulture at the local Vo-Tech and started his own landscaping business. He had a gift for making anything grow absolutely anywhere, and his reputation spread around the Norman, Oklahoma area, bringing in prestigious clients in upscale neighborhoods.

After returning to his home state of Oregon, Timothy became a Certified Nursing Assistant and eventually, an aide in a psychiatric unit. He later called this his most rewarding job, and became a passionate advocate for the mentally ill.

When asked what attributes were important in this job he replied, “Ability to get along with people, compassion, understanding, good listening skills, role model, thick skin, a blank expression and a sense of humor. Education and training is ongoing, not just from book and teachers but from patients. Our patients are not ‘crazy’ but real people with real problems.”

He retired from Good Samaritan Hospital in 1996 at the age of 64, but it wasn’t long before he was informally running his landscaping business once more, taking care of many of his elderly neighbors’ yards in the senior citizen mobile home park where he lived. He could often be seen making the rounds to collect payment in the company of his beloved grandson, who liked to look for ducks and, misunderstanding the situation slightly, would also ask the neighbors for money, “For popcorn and chocolate milk.”

When not spending time with his grandchildren or the shrubbery, Timothy enjoyed woodworking, movies, reading and televised sports. He also did some traveling around Oregon, revisiting landmarks of his youth and exploring new places. He became an avid beachcomber, adding seashells to the large list of things that he collected always to his wife’s dismay.

After surviving a triple bypass surgery in 2001, he turned to cleaner living, giving up cigarettes and his beloved fried chicken, exercising regularly and continuing to abstain from alcohol.

“Sometimes in a depressed mood I feel I never accomplished much. I am not rich, famous, a rocket scientist. But then when I view my life, the things I have done, places I’ve been, people I met, and the fact that I have made a difference, I am proud of all of my accomplishments. When I leave – people know I have been there – that is an accomplishment!”

He is survived by his wife of 32 years, Barbara, who will struggle to live without him; an estranged son from his first marriage, Patrick Buchholz of Canada; a son and a daughter by marriage, Jim Butler of Albuquerque, NM and Alaysia Martinez (formerly Lisa) of Eugene, OR; a spoiled and doting daughter from his second marriage, Kelly Buchholz of Albany, OR; approximately 14 grandchildren – many of whom inherited his ears; 2 great-grandchildren; and many siblings of various levels of affection and detachment. Also, a crotchety priest of a cousin, Father Athanasius, who assured him a few months before his death that he probably wouldn’t go to hell. His sons, 16 month old Michael Paul and 39 year old David Kelly both proceeded him in death.

Drinker. Talker. Healer.

Dad.

He touched the earth for a while, and it smiled under his hand. He died in the Spring, and the petals fell from the cherry tree like tears as they mourned him.