This is my first Father’s Day without my dad and it sucks. Not that we ever did anything super-special on this day but I would either be with him or call him if I was not in the New York area.

I am still sorting through all the stuff he hoarded … ventured into the attic for the first time today and retrieved a couple items before the heat and the moldy Big Bird doll in the corner scared me away.

Is difficult to decide what to do with is left behind. The crazy carved wooden bowl from Namibia that my uncle gave my father now has a home in my apartment. But I have no idea what to do with the framed Madonna that, according to an inscription, some nun presented to my father in 1943 for “excellence in the third grade”.

For the sake of those that you leave behind, please don’t hoard.