Crocodiles and other absurdities

Photo from here....

I live in our little house physically alone aside from my two young children and our pets. All the belongings in this home are ours and paint a vivid and accurate picture of who is housed within these walls. But if you were to dig deep enough within cupboards and closets, you would items and articles that seemed at odds with these inhabitants and their actions. It would almost seem as if someone was hiding another person's things. Things that don't match. Things that come from another time or place. Random odd articles. Misplaced and mismatched items.

Buried deep in my deep freeze is a package of crocodile....er, maybe alligator meat. I never plan to eat it and never set out to eat it from the moment it entered said freezer.

It was Jeff's. He had bought it to feed our daughter. He was determined to have his children not be picky eaters. I remember he and three-year-old Liv sharing a chair in the kitchen together eating from a jar of pickled herring or dining on a dinner of rattlesnake meat.

As with most things, he didn't face the issues of childhood sustenance halfway. Instead of insisting that our daughter dine on asparagus or cauliflower, he would thrust something at her that was barely food in my eyes. But she trusted him and she ate it.

So many of these odd and mismatched things that line the backs of closets, shoes boxes and freezers mark who Jeff was and what he stood for. His beliefs. His idiosyncrasies.

I have thought about giving the freezer-burnt crocodile/alligator meat to the dog. But I have refrained. It is a reminder of a man who was funny, loving and passionate about his little family. As all the remaining small and possibly seemingly insignificant items he left behind, they hint at who he was and how strongly he loved his little ones.

Although I have donated many of his clothes or shared some of his more memorable belongings with his family; it is these small items wedged in the corners that speak of him most and remind me while I dig for dinner at the bottom of the freezer of who he was and how much he is missed.