Yesterday, I had a conversation on a facebook group about grieving:  Teaching the World How We Grieve: Acknowledging our grief anniversaries.

One of the things which I had mentioned was this:

I still have many moments when I can’t believe they are really gone. And I cling to anything of theirs. In case you hadn’t noticed, writing about it and them helps me. Sewing quilts with their clothes has been catharthtic.

Just yesterday, I was in a whirl because I had to let go of a car which had been given to us after the crash to replace ours. It recently had an electrical fire and yesterday we found out that the insurance company was totaling it. It is a negative reminder of the crash/loss but it is also a connection to them that will now be gone forever. And a reminder of the many ways in which people reached out to us. I don’t even know how to describe the mess of feelings that produced. LETTING GO. . .

I had one of those clinging moments again today when my son took out some boxes from the shed and asked me if I wanted him to break them down to put in recycling. I said, “No!” — not because the boxes were in great shape but because they were ones which Mary had labeled when we were moving from Texas.

When the crash happened, we were living in a rental house, and exactly two months (the Fourth of July) after the crash, we moved into our present house. That’s when I found those boxes. There were many boxes labeled by her, but these were boxes of her college sister’s clothes left at home, and Mary was being silly and spelling her sister’s name every way she could think of.

That’s Mary for you.

When we know a person, we often know their handwriting. It is a part of them. And I couldn’t bear to throw away that part of her. She will never again write anything — even on a moving box.

I wonder if she would think that I am being silly.