Recently I have had reason to begin questioning possessions. I don’t own great wealth nor am I in need of anything in particular. Of course, if I ever found those button fly Levis from so long ago I may be tempted. I have not taken a vow of poverty after all.
A number of months ago, I had to go through my mother’s things after she passed. Heartbreaking, heart wrenching do not do the experience justice. There were articles of clothing that were so painfully my mom that the very touch of the cloth gave me the feeling I might actually shatter in two. It was only clothing – cotton, polyester, a nice blend and it all had me bent double, sobbing. Not innocuous at all. Brutal. A detailed neckline, a flattering stitch, an embellishment knocked me off my feet and left me swamped in deep grief. I could feel my mom’s presence in it all but I could find no comfort in it, just loss. And yet there I was, separating, piling, dismantling all the pieces of a life in cotton and polyester.
My sisters and I, like many others, have begun to contemplate our own mortality and very practically what will happen to all of our belongings. Children, sure, there’s a plan. Pets, of course, but what about all of the hoodies? The jeans we don’t fit? The embarrassing underwear? I have half heartedly joked that I will try to take all my belongings with me when I go. Apparently, I’ll go out grandly. Of course, then we realise the absence of the stuff would be brutal too. Can’t seem to win in death at all.
It isn’t just the clothing that can gut punch. Trinkets kept for reasons unknown and then found by loved ones after belie their seemingly harmless appearance. Something on the kitchen window sill, a craft from a grandchild, something from your grandmother. Rich only in heady emotional weight. Stumbled over. So much a part of that person’s life and environment that it only takes on the heft after they are gone. It becomes charged with something much more than what it was. It is this shift that grabs you as if caught in a snare, stops you cold and delivers a fresh grief seemingly out of nowhere. So incredibly painful. Death of a loved one and its grief are filled with such painful poignancy each time a new purse complete with the tags or a tattered well-worn sweater is discovered. Just things, things without heart, still paradoxically alive and pulsing with meaning.
A few days ago, I bought a black shirt. There was nothing to distinguish it from any other black shirt I have owned over the years. My mom had a black except hers had brilliant and flattering flounces and a form hugging shape. Somehow they are both categorized as black shirts but similarities stop there. My mom knew the type of shirt I would have chosen each and every time and we would have laughed at this as she encouraged me to find something between hers and mine. Perhaps a “soft grey?” she might suggest to wean me off the dark colour palatte knowing full well her eye for colour and style skipped me genetically. Still, seven months after her death she still is still somehow connected to a shirt she will never see. Got me again. Damn poignancy.
When someone you love dies, there is much support. It is the months and years following that can be anguish. It is after the shock and the slow dawning of realization that life, no matter how good, will never be that good again. This may be what ages us. It’s the stuff. It’s the lack of stuff. I guess it isn’t the stuff at all.