Good-enough grief work

Making can connect with a loved one gone

On my brother’s third memorial Father’s Day, I made a craft.

He was in my head all that day as I tap-tap-tapped tiny nails into twigs and into a back board. He would have watched me wielding the big ol’ Estwing because that’s the only hammer I could find, and he would have told me that this could go a lot faster with his pneumatic 18-gauge brad nailer.

NAILED IT: Split twigs, edges that don’t quite meet and mismatched nails

That’s not the point, I said out loud.

This is about process. There’s no judgment, no timeline for creating something to memorialize a loved one. He would have taken a look at the twigs splitting as I hammered, given me a ‘suit yourself’ shrug and moved on. Later he would have checked on my progress, a little impressed that I was actually making headway on a sign made of twig letters. That would be challenge enough for him to do some twig art himself, but better. Or at least faster. And funnier.

Twig art inspo for the funny crafter (Etsy)

If the game was Who Makes the Best Sign Out Of Twigs, he wouldn’t just randomly add letters by snipping one twig piece after another and nailing each into any old scrap of plywood lying around, as is my want. He would begin by opening his laptop and designing something in SketchUp. Hours later he would show me the finished mock-up using the rotate tool to reveal multiple angles. See? See, THIS is how you do it.

More inspo for the twig-sign crafter (davesrusticwillow.com)

After locating a lovely piece of driftwood he would head to his workshop for the Skilsaw to trim it to his exact dimensions; the palm sander for smoothing off the corners; his Leatherman knife to whittle the ends of the twigs to ensure snug connections; and some noxious wood preservative for dipping each pre-cut letter component so the bark wouldn’t flake off. While that was all drying he would pencil in the SketchUp’d letters on the wood then use carpenter glue to set the pre-cut pointy twig units in place. He would locate the tiniest bit on his power drill to set pilot holes so the twigs wouldn’t split when nailed, obviously. He would set up the air compressor and hoses for the aforementioned pneumatic brad nailer, find his supply of brads to load up a cartridge and dig out his safety glasses and earplugs because safety first. He would have been the one of the Three Little Pigs who spent all his time building a wolf-proof house of brick while I made a shack of twigs. (My quilts could hide the gaps.)

But on this old Gulf-Island family compound, nothing is that easy. The Skilsaw blades might be rusty. The sandpaper disks might be mouldy. The brad nail cartridges might have corroded into a single brick. The Leatherman might have seized up. The WD40 can might be empty. The air compressor might have given up the ghost. My brother spent most of his time here searching for things and fixing things.

He did fix up the cabin to make it functional as his retreat and remote office with room enough for his two boys. He got rid of the carpenter ants, installed a gleaming wood floor and a tidy kitchen, designed and built a daybed/shelf/firewood box unit and a breakfast counter facing an ocean view that he created by strategically limbing some old firs and cedars. But he was too late to put in the final touches.

When it became less painful to go inside I decided to finish it the way he would have liked it, a space that he would have said, upon opening the door, This is awesome!

Another handyman wielding power tools to install the perfectly imperfect sign

After years of working together in craft, sometimes cooperatively and sometimes competitively, this was our last collaboration. He missed the big reveal but he would have loved the idea of other friends and family enjoying his hard labour of love. It’s not perfect but it’s done.

See? See, THIS is how you do it.