Almost two and a half years since I lost my soul mate, my best friend, my love of 40 years, I have started making decisions about what to do with the rest of my life. After much frustration with the normal day to day problems that come with owning a home.. I decided to move to a wonderful senior community that is close to where I grew up and my daughter. They are in the beginning stages of expansion, with a new complex of apartments available in 2017. Last month I was able to put a down payment down and choose an apartment plan and location. Two bedrooms, two bath, 1200 square feet with a screened in balcony. I have two years to downsize and get ready.
Welcome, fellow travelers on the grief journey
and a special welcome to anyone new to The Grieving Room.
We meet every Monday evening.
Whether your loss is recent, or many years ago;
whether you've lost a person, or a pet;
or even if the person you're "mourning" is still alive,
("pre-grief" can be a very lonely and confusing time),
you can come to this diary and say whatever you need to say.
We can't solve each other's problems,
but we can be a sounding board and a place of connection.
Unlike a private journal
here, you know: your words are read by people who
have been through their own hell.
There's no need to pretty it up or tone it down..
It just is.
Since his death I had made sporadic efforts to deal with his things. Pants and coats were given away to charity quickly. His shirts I bagged and sent to a wonderful person who made me a memory quilt that is on the back of the couch where I can see it and touch it every day when I am watching TV. The fishing gear (a bunch) went to a friend’s three young grandsons who love to fish. Some sweaters went to the donation places rather quickly and some I kept. Recently I took one that I had a vivid memory of him wearing it and made a pillow.
In our marriage, he was the photo album guy, the one who got the prints, dated them, and put them in the albums. I have eight albums from the 40 years that we were together. Treasures for sure and they go where I go.
In one of the boxes from he brought from New York was an old photo album, the kind with black paper and corner holders. There were pictures of him from about age 8, everything mounted and labeled; the handwriting was clearly his. There were also many loose pictures, that I think maybe came from his mother. There were report cards. A baby shoe in an envelope with his mother’s handwriting on it. There were several college yearbooks. There were four pictures of his first wife. No albums from his first marriage, assume she got those. My Stephen was not a packrat. So those things that he brought with him to Missouri obviously meant something to him.
I mounted the loose older pictures on empty pages of the black album. I started a new album, with his diplomas from college. I kept one picture of first wife, put it on a page with a colored picture of his mother.. (both had red hair). Labeled them Redhead #1, Redhead #2, and a picture of me, Redhead #3.. I cut out his pictures from the college albums and put them in the new scrap book and pitched the books.
There were a lot of pictures from his 25 years working at Hallmark Cards, including a beautiful album prepared when he retired. There were pictures of us with his friends at the Christmas dinners, and various pictures at different celebrations over the years. I went through it all, keeping the Christmas pictures, good pictures of him, and pictures of people I knew, now all in one nice album.
I was really proud of myself at this point. And then I got to the bottom of the second box. There were two wood “fish plaques” that he had made in shop class, probably junior high. They had never hung on a wall, but he lugged them from New York and through all of our moves. Actually, they were ugly, as he was not a handy kind of guy. So I threw them in the dumpster. And came back in the house and started crying and couldn’t stop. What??
Who really knows what hits you hard and what doesn’t. Why the fish? Maybe the decision to sell our home and move on? Maybe all the happy stuff I had sorted through and kept? Maybe what I had been able to let go of was just too much yet? In the end, I went back outside and pulled the “fish” out of the dumpster, took a picture of them for the new Steve album, and then threw them away again. That seemed to be an OK way to handle it.
This is already long so I won’t bother to list all of the “stuff” I have not yet dealt with. Right now I’m struggling with the idea of new couch since the old one is well, old, and too big for the new apartment. My visual image of him sitting in the corner with his legs stretched out, drinking a glass of wine and watching football or basketball.. is strong still. Hopefully in two years that couch will be easier to let go of. Not now.
The upcoming move is forcing me to make decisions. I have things from my grandmother. I still have a few small furniture pieces from New York. I have his very old oak desk that looks like an antique. I have not ever used it, too many memories of him sitting there, paying bills. I have a basement full of stuff .. that he grumped at me for moving when we got this home. While he was sick he told me that “we” had to deal with that stuff in the basement.. and I told him I would deal with it later. I didn’t want him wasting energy doing things like that.
What the heck, it is a guy thing to keep empty boxes? A whole corner of the basement is full of boxes, even the boxes our ceiling fans came in. (Like those would ever be taken down and moved.) I have thrown away a few and will keep the boxes that might be small enough to pack things in when I move. Most are too big.
A fellow widow friend downsized and moved last summer. She said it was only “Stuff”, and getting rid of it would not take away the memories, or the love they had. Sounds easy in theory, but for me has not been easy in practice.
The grief journey is not for the faint of heart. So I will keep some of his stuff, and some stuff reminding me of our life together. My kids will someday have to throw it away. But for now the stuff is MY treasure. So it will have to be their problem.