Never Enough

Parents die, and their children inherit the loose ends left behind. Our parents left behind a large suburban house bursting with dusty inexplicables - a live hand grenade, a four-fingered glove, check stubs from the 50's, year upon year of Road & Track, a locked strongbox with nothing inside. They had neglected doing uncomfortable things, like settling on one of us as executor, disposing of our youngest brother's ashes, and setting up a financial safety net for the one of us who needed but wouldn't ask for help, who, at nearly 60, still lived in the basement of their house. We sorted through, donated and tossed objects we had previously coveted into the 20 yard dumpster hulking outside. We too postponed hard choices, stacking boxes of indecision in a dark room at Public Storage. As we emptied, then sold the house we had lived in for most of our childhoods, Never Enough emerged poem by often difficult poem.