Attorney-At-Law

Marc, Amy, Mom, and I cleaned out your office a few days ago; that wasn't an easy task. Each of us wound up in tears at some point.

I had never been to this particular office. It has no windows and is in a nondescript, tallish building on Long Island. Nevertheless, I remember that you were really excited about this move - you told me it was the first time you'd take an elevator to your floor and that the tallness of the building made it feel kind of chic / city-like to you.

The sign outside said "Joseph Dempsey - Attorney-At-Law" and so did your business cards. You worked so hard to put yourself through law school - and you were rightfully, quietly proud about being an attorney.

You had some beautiful things in your office. You almost started a quarrel amongst all the kids - but we settled out of court, peacefully, with no shouting :-)

I received your Art Deco Bulgari letter opener, which is just so beautiful and old-fashioned. I'm completely obsessing over it - you know I love stationery. You also had some little Iitala glass figurines, which are now in my living room, and a series of miniature brass animals on your bookshelf. Marc took the owls, Amy took the cats, and I took the elephants. They are lovely.

But the best thing we found was a personal folder, full of clippings, cards, and newspapers about us - your kids. I am not sure why you kept this folder at work, maybe you thought it would be lost in the shuffle at home. Regardless, we were so, so happy to find all these treasures. You had my old Penn report cards, with my GPA highlighted! You had Marc's old school newspaper articles, and Amy's National Honor Society newsletter. You also had so many cards and letters we had sent or given to you over the years, along with some funny / strange post-it notes and other items that you obviously valued, although we couldn't always say exactly why. I will write some of them up to post here later on.

We even found some very old notes that you had written to your parents - you must have gotten them from Grandpa's house when he passed away.

So many of the cards to you were animal-themed, or even "from" one of our pets like Buster or Eliot. I found a note in which I mentioned going soon, after I had surgery, to get a kitten: that kitten turned out to be Buster, who is almost 16 now.

One of the funniest documents you had was a "petition" I wrote when I was in grade school, with "my colleague Mary Shea." In it, we talked about how we should be free on Thursday afternoons instead of going to religion class (which was incredibly, painfully boring). The petition was for "freedom of time" and we managed to get 26 signatures! Amy was a part of it, too.

I am glad there were some hilarious documents mixed in, because it lightened what was a really hard thing to do. It's hard to believe you aren't going back to work, Dad.

After going through your things, I realized I have so many questions for you. I'm just going to list them out, it makes me feel better to have written them down.

1. Who gave you a Bulgari letter opener? How long have you had it, and did you use it regularly?

2. Who is the Iitala fan? Did you have a colleague who was Finnish? Or just work with someone who was really into design? Never, in a millions years, would I have predicted getting Iitala goodies from your office...

3. What is the story of your brass animal collection? Marc thinks that they may have been your parent's. If so, maybe Aunt Terry will know...

4. This is more of a statement than a question...but your business cards, with the scales of justice on them, are really fabulous. Since I have always worked in design and marketing, I wish we could talk about your decision to put the scales on your cards. It's pretty quirky, and I love the cards. Who designed your business cards for you? I wish I knew.

I guess I will stop there. Maybe answers will come to me over time, Dad.

Much love,
Megs

p.s. I forgot the funniest document until now. It was a birthday-party planning document for Tootsie's birthday (one of our cats). It had things to do at the party listed, like "watch Tootsie eat bugs" and then we almost singed her whiskers when we sang happy birthday to her.