As I mentioned before, my father died a few years ago. He was a quiet man with quiet pleasures. When I think of him, I remember him lounging in his sun-drenched backyard, a newspaper or magazine in his hands, and a cigarette hanging from the corner of his mouth. He wore black socks, sandals, and a “reading hat” which others might mistaken for a “fishing hat”. They would be wrong; he only wore it when he was reading. He took pride in our little yard, mowing it every Saturday morning. He would get down on his hands and knees to pull dandelions and other weeds when they appeared. Whenever he spotted them, he’d curse them under his breath, barely loud enough for the kids to hear. I was always impressed with his “vocabulary” and ability to string together invectives in new, creative, and jaw-dropping ways. When mother was nearby, she’d only shake her head. When she died, the cursing stopped and the dandelions returned unimpeded. He had surrendered. At his funeral years later, my sister and I joked that it was the dandelions that finally killed him.
The funeral was simple. We rented the same room we had for mom. Some friends and family showed. I knew most of them; I assumed the others were co-workers and such. Both of our parents wanted to be cremated, so there was no casket, just a box at the front of the room that people could visit. It was surrounded by photos of my dad when he was young, in the Army, and every hat he’d worn thereafter. Behind the box was a framed photo of my father sleeping a hammock, and my sister and I standing over him with water balloons ready-to-go. My mom loved that picture. The truth is it didn’t turn out as planned because we couldn’t stop giggling…
While sorting through the papers, deciding what to toss and what to keep, I came across the funeral guest book. Nearly everyone that came to pay their last respects signed their name and address. The book was mostly empty except for the first four pages. For no real reason, I ran my finger down the names and mental snapshots flashed before me of having seen them there. On page four my finger stopped and a chill ran through me. “This is not possible,” I thought. The entry read:
“Asa Denson, Boston, Massachusetts”
I looked across the room at the closed diary resting atop the old papers. Finding those papers were no accident. The ubiquitous A. Denson was friend or family, and maybe –just maybe– he wanted to be found.