The Healing Journey

August 3, 2025

It was one of those half-hearted efforts that brought Dave to the attic to rummage through things he really no longer needed, and while he was there, he came upon the personal effects of his late father, who had died a decade earlier. His father was probably a borderline hoarder, although they never used that term and instead preferred to call him a collector, or more appropriately, a “junk collector,” to quote his mother. When he passed, it took two dumpsters to get rid of all his “valuables” in the basement, from scrap wood to antique tools to strange gadgets — no one knew what they were.

Dave vowed he wasn’t going to put his kids through the same ordeal, but the promise rang hollow because, like his father, he couldn’t get rid of anything. He even had trouble getting rid of his father’s “stuff.”

In the attic, he came upon remnants of his father’s life, including military patches from World War II, some emblems and buckles that he must have gotten off of Nazi prisoners when he served in France after the liberation of Paris, assorted tie clips (no one used them anymore), an onyx ring and a sterling bracelet with an Army insignia that his sister Jeanne gave him when he went off to war. And then, curiously, Dave found his father’s gold wedding band. Fifty-five years of marriage, with its usual ups and downs, and during the last three years mostly downs because he cared for his wife, who had Alzheimer’s and cancer. In the end, he died before she did, and Dave couldn’t decide whether it was devotion or just plain stubbornness that drove his father. No matter.

He took off his wedding band and put on his father’s. He had kept his vows through all those ups and downs, and the ring almost seemed sacred, a sort of sacramental. It reminded Dave of a lot of things. He never took that simple gold band off. It was 75 years old and had seen a lot of life.
©J Pisani

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