I walked up and down the aisles, picking things off the shelf with the casual ease of someone who’s just gotten paid. I was thinking about how my parents would take us to Cub Foods when we were little and each of them would have a cart and they would fill them as we walked between them and either they would bicker or we would bicker. Cans of corn and beans and boxes of Jiffy mix for Sunday morning muffins, crackers and ground beef and cream of mushroom soup for my mom’s meatballs.
I’m distracted by the memories, and trying not to worry about my dad.
I’ve lost my dead people. My red folder full of the photos I saved from the garbage at my grandma’s funeral and I can’t look for it in any reasonable way, because the longer it takes me to find it, the more I start to panic and the more I start to panic, the more useless my searching becomes.
I also cannot find my parents’ will, but I’m not searching for that at all.
I got home to unload my groceries and found in my bags, crackers, ground beef, and cream of mushroom soup. Comfort food.
That won’t get eaten before we head north, I’ll bet.
Tiny Cat Pants 
You can share my people. They’re every bit as screwed up and funny as yours, maybe even nuttier and more tragic sometimes. I know it’s not the same.
Life comes rushing at you with the memories in your mind as a way to keep you anchored to the love you have to hang on to.
I’d offer for you to share my people, but goodness knows they’re a handful and a half. And I know you want your own people to be well, so it’s to that end I’m hoping for you.
I can’t look for it in any reasonable way, because the longer it takes me to find it, the more I start to panic and the more I start to panic, the more useless my searching becomes.
I do that too. It’s a pain.
You could share my people, too, if you wanted. Just yesterday, during a moment’s aimless surfing of the net, I discovered that some distant relative has taken pictures that hang on my bedroom wall and put them up on a website? And there are pictures there of my grandmother and my uncle that I have never even seen before. How does this distant cousin have the pictures? Why are they there? How do we hold on to our families and our memories? I hope your father will turn out to be well. I hope you find the pictures you need.