Diary of a Widower

Getting rid of her clothes

TUESDAY, May 4 – The house was quiet and serene when I woke up. Sander in Switzerland, Eamonn staying overnight with a friend in Arnhem. For the first time, a night alone.  It felt good, really good.  Empty house, empty head.  Now I can focus all my energy on moving to our new place later this week.

I mucked out Sander’s room. Then, I collected Jennifer’s clothes from the attic and took them to a church on the other end of the city.  That had always been the plan. Our downstairs neighbor suggested a used clothed store in the neighborhood, but I didn’t want to risk running into someone wearing one of Jenn’s dresses. No way.

When I threw the bags down the stairs, one of them split open and a couple of sweaters fell out. I smelled them. Nope. No Jennifer, no memories. A clothing smell I didn’t recognize. I put them in a new bag and loaded everything into the car. Mustn’t stop now. Just keep going. Think about today. Not about yesterday when she was wearing the clothes, not about tomorrow when someone else might be wearing them.

A shiver went down my spine. Just keep your head cool, I tell myself. This is my chance to get rid of the clothes, once and for all. Gone. At the drop-off point, no questions were asked and I felt no need to elaborate. The bags were added to the existing pile and, as I wrote on her Facebook wall: ‘Some time soon a number of women will be wearing purple.’

23:00 – By that evening I’d already picked up Eamonn from his stay in Arnhem.  A two-night sleepover was a bridge too far. When we got home, all he wanted to do was cuddle – as close to me as possible, and vice versa. Security is the mantra. After taking a shower he grabbed me and said, ‘I want Mom back.’

If only I could make that happen.

‘If only life was a video game,’ he said. ‘Then we could die and come back to life again.’

Moving house is a new ending

FRIDAY, April 23 – The worst thing about moving, Sander said to the psychologist this afternoon, is that pretty soon we’re going to be leaving an apartment that was furnished almost entirely by Mom. She knew exactly how she wanted it. The new house is great, but it’ll be furnished by us, instead of by Mom and that is really sad.

I contemplate all this around five in the afternoon as I sit down in a chair on the tiny balcony. Our new house has two big balconies providing more than enough sun to sit outside at the end of the day. Admittedly, without Jennifer.  But isn’t that the whole idea behind the ‘new start’, as well-meaning friends tell us?  Jenn often sat outside on this postage-stamp balcony, reading, or writing in her diary.  She wore sunglasses against the glare of the setting sun and – just as now – Bodhi the cat was usually close by.  Inquisitively he followed what was happening on the ground or on the adjoining porch.  Sometimes, he lay innocently on her lap or at her feet.

Worn and faded Tibetan prayer flags hang from the railing.  There’s not much left of them, but that’s as it should be. Air, wind, fire, water, earth:  corresponding colors, blue, white, red, green and yellow.  According to Tibetan tradition, these flags must be handled with respect by replacing them with new ones and burning the old. I don’t see myself doing that. They’ll end up hanging on our future balcony. Or is that tempting the evil spirits?

I find the carrier straps for my bike that I had searched for in vain a while back.  Jenn had appropriated them to hang two planters. Tomatoes, peppers and assorted herbs… now hopelessly wilted in parched soil.  My head slowly falls back, resting against the wall. I close my eyes and listen to a whiney child in the distance. A passing wasp alights briefly and then continues his journey, presumably in good spirits.

I cannot deny that my mood is something akin to bliss. At this moment precisely six months ago, I took Eamonn on my right knee, put my arm around Sander’s shoulders and told them that Mom was not going to wake up. The cat meows. It’s dinner time.