When you have a box truck with a hydraulic lift gate everyone who is moving or selling a house that knows you  checks in with you. 

 

That’s because moving furniture is a lot easier if you can roll the heavy stuff on a dolly onto the truck’s  hydraulic lift gate, push a button (using the truck’s battery power to run a hydraulic pump which elevates the lift gate) and then roll the furniture into the box.

 

Consequently, there was nothing out of the usual when my riend Charlie invited me to dinner and asked if I could help him move all the contents out of his family's long time vacation cottage.

 

So last week end we drove the truck up to the cottage on Sunday morning, with plenty of coffee to fuel the mindless boxing, blanketing, and lugging of – I would guess – at least 75 years of summer family experiences in the woods on a small lake.  

 

Though I had known both Charlie’s mother and father, each had been dead for years, and I wasn’t struggling with any anxiety about having to abandon a summer cottage (where I had never spent any time).

 

I carried boxes of kitchen stuff out to the truck, wrapped moving blankets around tables, and took pictures off the walls.

 

Charlie, I could tell, was having a little more introspection – and was having a few flashbacks – and a few beers to help offset them.

 

It was about 2:00 in the afternoon.  We were getting down to the last room – Charlie’s parents' room (neither had occupied it for at least 25 years).

 

I was pulling drawers out of one of the bureaus (to make it lighter to move out to the truck),

 

Charlie was babbling about the room being stopped in time since his mom passed away – sort of kept as it was – unused -  out of respect for his parents.

 

I pulled out the bottom drawer – it was Charlie’s dead dad’s old bureau – and in the bottom drawer were three stacks of shirts, one stack on the left of the drawer, one in the middle, and one stack on the right hand side.

 

The top buttons on the shirts where buttoned, the collars were all at the rear of the drawer, and the shirts in each stack were folded so only the top third of the shirt faced up.  

  

Charlie’s Mom – when his dad was still alive –  used her hands on the fabric and her heart in the process.

 

I had opened a drawer full of affection.

 

Man, this was too much for me - tears came into my eyes. 

 

For me, No sorting, No folding.