Grief Goals and Dead Loved One’s Things
The new year is filled with endless articles and tips about achieving that clean-slate feeling: New year, new you! Imagine all that can be achieved with the help of some workbooks and checklists! Don’t get me wrong, I love a good workbook and list, but when it comes to dealing with things that remind you of a loved one who is no longer here, you can forget the checklist.
One Grief Goal I’ve had since Daryl died is to clean out what I call The Closet of Doom. The COD is primarily a Daryl archive of clothes, coats, soccer paraphernalia and memories of when he used it as a recording studio during COVID. For the first year, I could barely step inside it without having a sinking sense of dread and tears. But, during the last year, I’ve tried slowly to organize it and get rid of things that have the least sentimental value. One half of the COD is now a linen closet, but there are still some lingering items.
When people die, you spend a lot of time deciding what to do with their things, weighing which piece of clothing or accessory has more sentimental value than another. It is a mentally and emotionally draining process, both literally and figuratively.
After he died, there was an urgency to remove the most recently acquired items because they held the sharpest and most painful reminders of how his body was breaking down (the hospital bed, the walker, an unopened pack of adult diapers, an oxygen machine). I moved backwards from there through a timeline of his declining health: Ostomy supplies, copious amounts of gauze and salves, the medications to beat back the cancer. Every drawer seemed to hold some bottle to beat back pain and the inevitable reality of stage 4 cancer.
There are still things that live in a netherworld between “Keep” or “Get rid.” I’ve kept the glucose tablets he used every day to help maintain his blood sugar as a Type 1 diabetic because they make me feel like he’s still here. While he was going through chemo, a friend bought him a beautiful plaid blanket which he wrapped himself in after treatments. We lovingly called it the “Risha Blanket.” It brought him so much comfort, and now I can’t get rid of it and I can’t use it either so it lives in a dark corner of the Storage Closet of Doom. It is forever tied to him, some sign of both hope and comfort.
What do you do with objects that slowly lose their purpose other than to hold grief and the absurd belief the dead person may return and use them?
It’s a funny thing, how meaning deepens after a death. Even the most innocuous items hold something, like Daryl’s keys. Maybe I keep them because he was constantly misplacing them and I have a special connection to keeping an eye on their movement. Now, they don’t budge off the mantle next to his ashes, and there is a satisfaction in knowing I will always know where they live.
It’s different with my mom because we didn’t live together, I’m not faced with her things jumping out at me every day, which also means I’m not reminded of her physical presence as often. But, this Christmas, my dad asked me to go through a bin of items he was uncertain what to do with after cleaning out the hallway cupboard of toiletries. The cupboard itself was vast, three shelves about four feet deep. If a Q-tip, tissue, Band-Aid or medication was needed, she was the sole navigator of the cupboard, the creator of the inexplicable map of its innards. Visibility was limited, items were organized like the rings on a tree, the newest version at the front, the oldest at the back. I felt like an explorer not understanding the landscape, the difference between a life-saving or poisonous plant. Bottles of nail polish remover, bags of cotton balls, expired cough syrups, huge Ziploc baggies of hotel toiletries from long-ago trips, bottles and tubes of face creams and lotions (a collection exponentially expanded upon by her enthusiasm for a product called Zim’s Crack Creme, which led to a letter being written to the company and later, a radio spot with her extolling its virtues).
Rooting through the plastic bin pulling out free with purchase makeup bags, I found used tubes of lipstick worn to steep skateboard ramp slope, bags of nail files with names of politicians emblazoned on the back, expired drugs prescribed to a friend long-dead from cancer. I was amazed by how much a cupboard can hold without exploding, how easy it is to keep buying more without losing something. In the end, most went into a garbage bag, except for some un-used makeup brushes and a few of her lipsticks.
Spreading the love and the memories
It’s true, you can’t take it with you, but you also leave a lot behind that can make others happy. It has brought me a little bit of joy to give away things to other friends and family. I gave a few colorful makeup bags to my friend’s daughters to use for purses or to hold their art supplies and the smiles on their faces made me feel like my mom was the one giving them a gift—a little more of her out in the world.
It turns out Daryl’s clothes and shoes fit a wide number of body shapes, sizes and styles—one friend has his shoes, the other some dress shirts, another his pants and my friend’s son a few sweatshirts. Seeing his clothes worn a friend, like a piece of him is still walking the earth visiting me.
The other option, in which I too have dabbled, means confining these object to a closet or a cupboard for eternity, like the grave goods of ancient Egyptians. While I may not check much off my Grief Goal list this year, I can recognize how spending and wasting so much, the act of taking a loved one’s things and spreading them among many feels like a radical act.