Some time back I received an email from a woman whose husband had died a few months prior to her writing. She wondered if she was reacting in a normal way to the task of disposing of her husband’s clothes. She had a friend who had emptied the closet in a very short time after the death of her husband, but when she tried to do the same it made her cry and she just couldn’t even start. She wondered if this was how she should feel or if she was just no making any progress.
On the one hand I have always thought we should not be pressured to clean out the closets before we are ready to do so. For some reason there always seems to be a friend or some family members who think it their business to push us to get this done very soon. They have the best of intentions and are convinced that a full closet creates more grieving than an empty one. That is not true and has led to far too many people cleaning out before they are really ready. The process of disposing of clothes and other personal items is a healing part of the grief journey.
On the other hand there are folks who really want to face this very soon and seem to find solace in the process. There really is no rule or best practice involved with this issue. A friend of mine’s sixteen-year-old son died of suicide. She met another mother whose sixteen-year-old son died the same way at almost the same time. My friend cleaned out her son’s room within weeks and turned the room into an office. The other woman refused to move a single item from her son’s room for over two years. Both women were right. We should clean when we are ready and no one can tell us when we should be ready. Being ready early does not mean we did not love as much as those who could not clean for months or years.
Part of the difference is that some folks are just more sentimental and attached to things than others. I have heard folks tell about keeping the clothes so they could smell the presence of their loved one. I kept the house coat my wife wore most often hanging in plain sight in our closet and tried to smell her presence but I guess something is wrong with my sense of smell, it did not work. I was with my wife when she bought almost every article of clothing in the closet, but somehow I felt no sense of attachment to the clothes. Her sister came and took a large portion and that felt very good to me. There is no one my wife had rather have her clothes. The rest went to a group that cares for the homeless in our city. Barbara would have liked that as well and it felt good to me. Then I hit a wall. There is no place to donate under garments and pajamas so I got a large trash bag intending to dispose of them as part of the clearing in preparation for selling my house. I opened the drawer and fell apart. Could not move a single item. I don’t know what that means except that we should clean things when we are ready and we can do so in one fell swoop or piece by piece. There are no rules nor is there a normal.
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