Remembering the Serf

Events of official remembrance for the Serf are over. Life persists. I have found myself thinking about a lot relating to him for the last week, tidying stuff up on this end. We rearranged the house some to occupy more of the space that is suddenly empty - reorganized the shelving, a little bit of the furniture, occupied his old workroom with the husband’s bits and bobs of equipment.

D and his family had cleared most of his belongings, leaving only the furniture and odds and ends for us to use. The Serf lived fairly simply, but even so, the paperwork involved in the 101 facets of life still is considerable.

In the 2 weeks that D was here we watched her organize, administrate, marshall and generally manage everything and everyone involved. Incredible woman, that. Much love to her family, who in addition to providing support, strength and lots of humour, also plied us hungry young-uns with the kind of food we’d probably never learn to produce ourselves.

D very kindly sorted as much of his more personal things as she could, like aforementioned toothbrush/-paste etc, so that we were left with the more general-use items to decide on.

I’ve never been one to hesitate with throwing stuff away. Like the Serf himself, i prefer travelling and living light; it is a requirement of keeping my sanity intact (the big, thirsty beast that is our vehicle being an exception. And the Patrol itself is a spartan creature.). However of everything that i’ve appropriated or gotten rid of, i’m finding myself reluctant to remove the most insignificant item of all - his coffee mug. The Serf had one of those plastic insulated coffee mugs he’d swiped from somewhere, that he was quite attached to. Neither of us are inclined to use it, given the number of coffee mugs that we already have, but as the husband said “But that was his favourite mug! You can’t just throw it way.”

The Serf’s passing is having a funny, undefined effect on me. I’ve never lost anyone close to me before, and truth be told, my brain is still confused. He wasn’t close like family, or my handful of old friends. Until i met him last October, he was another faceless blogger from the motherland. But then he came to live with us. It effectively made us a strange almost-family unit - three people that fed regularly together and found some bond because of it, even if our lives were completely seperate otherwise. And that made the difference.

It’s the smallest things that get to you. Now i know why people say children don’t understand death. This quarter-lifer has yet to figure it out.

And the fat blue mug stays where it is for now, in applied memory.