 |
| from Art Journal. May 27, 2016 (gesso, watercolor, newspaper, acrylic) |
I.
This past week I gathered Rob's remaining clothes--the shirts and sweaters, pants and jackets, suits and coats and donated 20 bags of clothing to the Lupus Foundation. It pained me to gather his remaining clothing and so I tucked away two flannel shirts, a maroon sweater, and a few things for Devon if he so wishes. Against the pain, it also pleased me to think that others will be wearing the well-tended clothes of my husband as I know Rob would want that.
It took a considerable amount of time to gather from four different closets on three different levels all of Rob's remaining clothes. I lived with the bags lining the upper hallway for more than two weeks. I just couldn't make the phone call no matter how often I thought to do so. On Tuesday, I received a card in the mail asking for a donation from the very agency I was going to phone. I took this as a sure sign and made the call.
II.
There's an elegance that accompanies small steps. Outside on the front stoop are pots of geraniums. On the side porch are potted herbs. Each action need not be elaborate, nor even complete.
Each bag of clothing I gathered and donated left a vacancy, amplified losses I don't care to calculate. For now, my home is filled with pockets of movement and of stillness. These are placeholders for the love that feels misplaced.
I have worked these last few months to resettle the house. The heart will keep for another day.
There is nothing easy about this process of readjusting. Getting rid of his clothes was not on my list of responsibilities. Instead I had to leave his house. So hard to move back into life without him still and forever.
ReplyDeleteI love your last two lines-resettling the house, the heart will keep for another day.
Spaces come alive...
Bonnie K
I can't imagine leaving here, o ur home for the last 14 years. And yet as I write that I know the the unimaginable is so large a part of what we find becoming the new normal.
DeleteSmall steps are so powerful.
ReplyDeleteThey are mostly what I have.
DeleteYou beautifully convey how sensations and thoughts of such widely different experiences of love and grief coexist. Palpable. Your words create a moving experience inside me. Thank you for enlivening parts of me otherwise not seen.
ReplyDeleteThank you Carol. So good to know the work touches.
DeleteThere is such a deep elegance with which you write about your grief and the steps you are taking to emerge to the other side of grief: keeping the heart for another day.
ReplyDeleteThank you Tara. The steps are so uncertain and oddly so necessary.
Delete