THE FOSSIL RECORD
We went out and hunted for fossils together. That much I remember. I must have helped him put rocks and fossils into the plastic specimen boxes where they've lived since he died. I don't remember doing much with him, and what I do comes from manufactured memories of stray pictures in photo albums.
But the rocks and fossils were my most prized memory of him as a child, and I insisted that my mother take the two boxes of them that remained with us when we moved to Colorado. I took them into my own home when I finally had one. I hauled them from Colorado to Massachusetts to South Dakota (where they now live boxed up in our garage) because they had no other home than with me and my family.
Going through that collection is something I can do with my sons, I told myself. But I hold onto it just as much for myself, to have something tangible of the man's that proves I haven't abandoned him. That proves I still love him, and respect the man he tried to be.
The fossil record of my life with Thomas J. Wingate reveals strata after strata of his influences on me. Objects of his I still own. Objects he never touched that I own now on his behalf. Objects he once owned that have disappeared from time, but will always belong to me. All of it in one mass now, warding off classification and demanding unity.
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