Boxes to bins

Is this what is left of you? Your things just packed in boxes, as if they will be unpacked and put away in a closet to be worn, or used? I am supposed to open up these boxes and do something with your things...but I wont do anything with them. Instead, I will neatly fold each and every one of your shirts, taking care to button each button, and smooth the collar as I go. One particular shirt still has the sleeves rolled, just like you wore it last. Your things have been in boxes for almost 7 months, but yet I can still smell you. I can smell a faint scent of that cologne you would wear that I so loved to smell when I kissed your neck. I pulled out the zip up jacket that you wore for most of your Dr. appointments and Chemo infusions. You were so thin, and it fit you and didn't make you look as frail as you were underneath. Neat folded piles....that is what is left. Decisions on what to do with them someday. Will your dad want your suits? Will the boys want some of your shirts? Neatly placed in about 5 bins. Put aside until I am ready to go back to them. At least they are not in moving boxes anymore. I feel like I gave your things a more respectful place to be until my heart can handle the next step. My tears....many tears dropped on the collar of your many plaid shirts. The ones I used to tease you about. I put my arm in the sleeve of a shirt, feeling close to you because your arm had been there many times before. I don't have a lot of places that I feel that because I am now in a place that we never shared together. To get a glimpse of a place that you have been, even if it is the sleeve of a shirt, gives me peace for a few moments. A few smiles, looking at the clothes with tags on them still because I would try to buy you clothes that I knew you would never wear...those damn plaid shirts. Your shoes, some brand new...a suit that you wore for you best friends wedding as his best man, a shirt that Tyler bought you for Christmas, your belt, jeans, and sweatshirts. All there, all for me to look at and know that you will never be here again.

As I folded your things, I spoke out loud to my mom. Through tears I told her how I can still feel what its like to wrap my arms around you. I can feel exactly what you feel like in one of these shirts. I never ever want to forget that so I think about it often. I can still feel what its like to stand in front of you, looking up at your face. I almost felt like you were there today. So many things in front of me, a reminder of you, my husband, and best friend. Clothes are so personal. It is one of the things that I have been dreading doing but I set a goal in my mind that I needed to do this...for me. For my next steps.....without you. My eyes hurt today. I am drained emotionally, mentally, and physically. I am brought back to so many memories. I am trying to remember the good times, but seeing hospital bags, and scrubs, and things you would wear the last few months, only remind me of the hell that I felt. The heartbreak and pain, and my life in pieces on the floor in a hospital. I feel like I have been brought back in time to 7 months ago. I feel like you were just here. I imagine you are on a business trip and I have to go pick you up at the airport and then I can wrap my arms around you once again in one of those plaid shirts that are not folded neatly, in a bin......

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