I Put It Away, Then I Got On With Things

Last Labor Day weekend marked the first event my husband and I participated in together as "Band Parents." Our son had joined the high school marching band, and they needed parents to volunteer at parades, competitions, and football games, to help with uniforms, serve as chaperones on the buses, and march alongside the band to help clear the way and provide water to the students. We dutifully showed up at the school and were given our official nametags and bright blue polo shirts with the band's logo on them.  

Today, I chaperoned solo. It occurred to me last night that I needed to find my polo shirt, which presumably had been hanging in my closet since the end of last marching season, and my nametag and lanyard, which....honestly, could have been anywhere. So when I got up this morning, I went through all the shirts in my closet and didn't find it. But occasionally clean laundry gets put away in the wrong closet, so I started going through my late husband's shirts, and I found his polo shirt hanging neatly, with his name lanyard carefully hooked around the same hanger. And I realized that he doesn't need it any more, so I should return it to the school. 

Doesn't sound like a big deal, right? And at first, it wasn't. But as I laid the hanger on the kitchen table with my purse so I wouldn't forget it, it suddenly hit me. Putting that shirt back in the uniform closet was a definitive statement that he was gone. He would never march in another parade, take another photo of his son in uniform, drum along with another cadence, ride another bus back to the school, pass out another water bottle. We would never again reminisce about our own marching band days or laugh at our nerdy high school selves. We wouldn't be going to band parent meetings together. I would be doing all of those things solo. 

None of those things are hard to do alone; I'm perfectly capable of doing all of them myself. I have done them all myself, on occasion. It's not the same as figuring out how to maintain the pool or who to call to turn off the irrigation system or mowing the lawn. It's the knowledge that part of the fun of all those activities was doing them together, and that part of my life is over. 

I will admit that tears were running down my face as I drove towards the school with his shirt and lanyard on a hanger next to me. When I parked the car, I took a moment to pull myself together, wiped my face, blew my nose, and brought the shirt inside. I hung it in the closet with the rest of the shirts, took his nametag out of the plastic sleeve, and returned the lanyard to the designated box. And then I took a deep breath, and marched out of the closet to start my pre-parade duties. I put it away, then I got on with things. 

It occurred to me later in the day that this could be a healthy way to deal with all of the reminders of him that I will come across over the coming weeks and months: cry over it, put it away, then get on with things. Dwelling on them isn't productive, hanging onto them only prolongs the pain, and life keeps moving along, so I'd better get on with it. 

Letting go of things isn't easy for me. I have definite packrat tendencies. But when I do finally let go of things, like weeding through my craft supplies or donating clothes that no longer fit or giving away toys that my kids have outgrown or tossing 200 of the 500 twist ties that have accumulated in the kitchen drawer, it feels really good. It feels like a weight has lifted from my shoulders. It feels like I can breathe a little more freely. 

Letting go of reminders of him will be a little harder. Okay, a lot harder. But I have the memories, so I don't need the stuff. The stuff just holds me back, keeping me in the past, in my grief. Maybe, just maybe, letting go of the stuff will let me move ahead to the future, out of the grief of loss and into the joy of memories. 

I just have to put it away, then get on with things.