Seven

I am still not up to seeing people. There is still too much holiday left on this Saturday after Thanksgiving. So, today I tackle more "stuff," organizing, sorting, discarding, gifting, things of both mine and Colby's when I run across a huge box. The box is buried beneath other boxes in a part of the basement we call The Bomb Shelter. Thinking it is probably more of Colby's baby clothes I am surprised at its weight. I am even more surprised when I open it to find 7 years of client files and business receipts. Here are the years of our lives from 1989 to 1996. Files going back twenty years. I realize then that I missed my company's 20th anniversary. It would have been August 30th, but I was still reeling from Colby's passing then. Still am now. Normally it wouldn't be such a bad thing, not to remember, but when you own the company and are it's sole employee, well, I felt bad that I didn't remember such a momentous occasion.

I lug the box outside. It is a beautiful, warm day for late November, and I sit in a chair and pull out the first of more than 200 file folders. In these files are statements from banks I had forgotten I banked with; and thick, expensive phone bills. Back in the day we were charged for long-distance calls and publicists, then and now, live on the phone. I remember spending days sorting the phone bill and billing clients for their share. Those were the days when I had an office on Music Row. I'd pick Colby up after school and he'd ride back into town with me. The office featured a huge storage closet that I turned into "Colby's office." There was an old black and white tv (no cable then), refrigerator, crayons, coloring books and toys. It wasn't unusual for some of my famous clients to join Colby in his "office" and watch cartoons after a meeting with me.

I look through more receipts. First American Bank changed from using envelopes with plastic windows to the open window style in the middle of 1992. I see deposit receipts from my days as a stringer for the Nashville Banner, Nashville's former afternoon daily. Who even remembers when cities had afternoon papers? Colby came with me for many of my interviews, town hall meetings and the elections I covered. When Colby got old enough to vote, he did, never missing an election in which he was eligible to voice his opinion. He commented to me many times that he didn't understand why other kids his age didn't use this great opportunity our country gives us to elect our leaders. "If you don't vote, you shouldn't complain," was one of his more frequent sayings. Of course, he then took the opportunity to complain frequently.

I find tickets to a reception for the Country Radio Seminar that I apparently did not go to, and bills for rolls of fax paper. This was before the Internet, cell phones, or plain paper fax machines. I see lists, pages long, of mailings for press releases and remember when Colby was a little older and helped fold releases and stuff envelopes. Those were the days before broadcast fax programs, e-faxes or email. It took days to prepare a press release and even longer for one to arrive at its destined media outlet.

I spend several hours looking through the papers, and sort items that are recyclable from those items that are not. Eventually I bring the empty file folders up to my office, then fill most of a 96 gallon recycling container with the papers. This, then, was seven years of the history of my business, but it was also seven years of memories, Colby's and mine. That's one of the toughest things about Colby passing away. While I miss him deeply, constantly, with every single breath I take, there is no one left for me to say, "Remember when?" There is no one to share those memories with and I wonder what the point of all those good times were if no one is left to remember them but me.