It swallowed the hours, the routines, even my appetite. Our children visited often, bustling around the kitchen and urging me to eat a little more, rest a little longer, breathe a little deeper. “One day at a time, Mom,” they kept saying.
I nodded and smiled, but inside, time felt frozen, stuck in the moment we said goodbye to Harold. There’s a particular kind of grief reserved for those who lose a person they’ve spent their entire adult life beside. You don’t just lose a spouse; you lose the historian who remembers your earliest jokes, the witness to every milestone, the partner in every quiet triumph and every whispered worry.
I thought maybe handling the things he left behind might anchor me, might give shape to the grief that had felt so shapeless. Our children offered to help, but I declined. Some tasks, I felt, belonged to me alone.
I started with his closet. His shirts were still hung neatly, arranged the same way he kept them, short sleeves to the left, long sleeves to the right. His jackets still carried the faintest trace of pine and old-fashioned cologne.
Even his shoes sat lined up in perfect formation, as though he might step into them at any moment. I lifted one of his sweaters and pressed it to my face, inhaling deeply. The softness of the fabric, the lingering scent, it all felt like a gentle slap of memory, sharp and tender at the same time.
But it wasn’t in the bedroom or the closet where my life would shift again. It happened in the attic, a place we rarely ventured. The space was cluttered with ancient Christmas ornaments, yellowed tax forms, and the relics of our children’s school projects.
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