Every time I come back from my parents’ house, I always feel like I need to give my mind and body at least several days to detoxify and de-clutter. The whole Marie Kondo idea of having a clean, tidy, uncluttered space to have a clean, tidy, and uncluttered mind is a thousand percent true. I never feel comfortable or free in my parents’ home, and it’s not just because of who they are and how they treat me; it’s also due to how much junk is everywhere in the space they call home.

I’d already tried over the last ten-plus years to suggest to my parents to de-clutter and give away things. While it did look like some random things were gone (like a tall broken floor clock that my mom took, BROKEN, from my aunt’s house up the hill), it somehow got replaced by even more crap. There really is no light way to tell them that they cannot take all this stuff to the grave with them. My mom says to just be peaceful. My dad has repeatedly agreed out loud to me that they need to throw out stuff… but instead, he ends up collecting more junk and piling it all on top of each other.

So I thought about maybe having my aunt or uncle suggest it in some way to my dad. I texted my uncle. Unfortunately, he also knows my dad way too well given they are brothers, and he told me that there’s pretty much no one who can tell my dad what to do or how to live his life: wanting to un-clutter his life will have to come from himself.

He did remind me that this conversation brought up the one, single time that my dad actually was not stubborn: it was almost exactly 10 years ago, in the fall of 2014, when my uncle emailed him to get himself checked out and insist on a stress test from his cardiologist. My uncle said, “He could’ve stuck to his stubborn ways and emailed me back and said there was nothing wrong with him. He never replied but went and did what I strongly suggested. A month had gone by when I emailed him again if he ever did what I suggested. That’s when he replied that his main coronary artery was also plugged and his two auxiliaries were barely passing blood to his brain and that he was going to have a double bypass on that Thursday.”

His bypass was in November 2014. I came back home for two weeks to be with them. It’s one of those times when I really thought, maybe, just maybe my dad and uncle could mend their relationship. My uncle’s suggestion is ultimately why my dad is still around and humming ten years later. But unfortunately, the romantic thought I had in my head was just that: a thought. My dad never truly expressed any gratitude or emotion to my uncle in insisting he move forward with that procedure. It always made me sad and angry for my uncle, but as my uncle and I both know: my dad is beyond stubborn and will always do whatever he wants regardless of the situation.

I am still not sure what my dad has done that has either been productive or made his life happier or better in the last ten years outside of that bypass surgery. But, given that he’s still here and seemingly healthy, I think he owes quite a bit to my uncle. I don’t think he will ever acknowledge it, though.