17. Under Pressure

The first time I went to Brian‘s apartment when he was in the hospital was to pick up his mail and just sort of check in on the place. In my heart of hearts I really believed he would be back there in a “few days“ and about every second or third time that Ian and I went to visit Brian over those two weeks we would stop by to pick up the mail and just generally be with his things. It turned out that Brian was not going to ever come back and this then became my task to pack up his life and move him out. His car was still parked in his spot where the accident had happened, and I could see his full handprint on the backdoor window. having no idea what had happened I cannot tell if he put his hand there to shut the door, or put his hand there try to catch himself before he fell. I would often put my handprint on that handprint over the next few years (as Brian’s car became mine) to kind of feel some connection to him. Never in front of Ian because I was trying to hold it together for a child who was losing his father. And every time I went into his apartment, I would just cry. It had been quite a while since I had been inside because usually if we swapped the child, I just texted him that I was here and they would come out since Brian lived in a gated situation, it was just easier to wait on the street. Suddenly now it was my mental and physical task to pack up everything he owned and close out his life. It felt  both overwhelming and easy. I had a couch clearly I didn’t need two. When we separated the house, he took the armoire that we bought as our first furniture purchase together and I adored it piece, always had, so clearly that was coming home with me.

Then things started to get overwhelming…He had an extensive collection of wine books that I certainly didn’t need but I knew they were very important to him so I thoughtfully I tried to figure out what to do with them all. He had a pressure cooker that I absolutely hated. It was huge and took up so much cabinet space. He didn’t use it often but he did each piece had to be taken apart and washed separately and then he left them on the counter to dry for days. It was just one of those things that I swear he did to drive me crazy but honesty, he probably didn’t even give it a second thought. For sure I was getting rid of that! But then when it actually came time to do it, I cried over it because of the emotional value it had to me. The memories, good or bad, were now ingrained in that fucking pressure cooker. Every St. Patrick’s Day he made corned beef. Every first week of cold weather, he made stew. Every year near his mother’s birthday he made something she used to make. How could I just remove from my life. Like he was removed from my life…

Going through all of his clothes seemed easy. He and Ian were about the same size. We would keep most of his clothes. I kept a few things of his and during the pandemic wore Brian’s jeans almost every day. I kept almost all of his t-shirts and for Ian’s birthday had one of those t-shirt quilts made as a Christmas gift. Hey, your dad is dead, but here’s a blanket…I knew it was a tough thing to saddle my son with the responsibility, the emotional responsibility of wearing his father’s shirts, pants, suits, ties… and even though none of them fit him properly, I lived under the delusion that I would get them tailored. But in the end realized that was never going to happen. I gave them to a men’s workforce agency. We kept several dress shirts for Ian and he wore one for his senior pictures and one to his graduation.

And then it came down to all the brass tacks of Brian‘s things… His toothbrush, toothpaste, the notebook kept work notes in, the vast collection of records, his wine collection… with each and every item I had the thought I remember this from our lives… or I have no idea where he got this why he chose it or he needed it for. Both Brian and Ian are very practical and they hardly ever have just “things”.

I also found the congratulations cards for our wedding that his side of his family had sent us. All the cards and notes I had given him over our 27 years. All of the pictures of our various trips together. All this things in a box in his closet. Hidden memories.

Amazingly where I struggled the most was a sort of a jewelry box he had and inside there were buttons and safety pins and pennies… Not a collection just a smattering of random things and I agonized over every single thing in there. Why did he have it? Why was he keeping it? Why was it in this box of “precious things”? I suddenly needed to treat everything as precious. For some reason he had saved this safety pin in this box and I needed to honor that memory. It crippled me, that box.

I vacillated back-and-forth between feeling the need to immediately box up the things I “knew“ I didn’t want and get rid of them Goodwill and just keep everything and give it a more thoughtful, less emotional response.

When I found that I accidentally donated all of the wine books that I had carefully boxed up, written Brian‘s name in that plan to give to his work’s library I was so mad at myself.  Those was  important to him and casted off to the nearest Goodwill I can find. It proved  was moving too fast snd not being “careful”. For weeks I drove to the Goodwills in the area to search their bookshelves to check to see if I could find any of them to buy them back.

How do you wrap up all the things in somebody’s life, a life that you have shared with this person for more than half of his and half of yours and make snap decisions about what to do with it all.

I can’t tell you how many times I look at that armoire that’s now in my house and remember when we bought that together along with a set of dining chairs, that I still have. We had just found out I was pregnant, and a couple weeks later I would have a miscarriage. and think about that armoire’s journey of how it got to my house. Ian now has that box of Brian‘s and keeps a few of Brian‘s precious things in there, Brian‘s father‘s dog tags, the rosary we got when Brian was in the hospital when we had a priest come and give him last rites, Brian’s cufflinks…. Whatever small trinkets were in there, one or two safety pins, pennies, and buttons, guitar picks, that were in there when Brian died I have merged into my things.

I brought back all the dishes and glasses we split in half, merged pots and pans and the silverware. His knives are on my knife board. His liquor collection looks down on me from above my cabinets.

And our son, who to me looks so much like his dad and has many of his qualities looks back at me with Brian’s eyes.

And I still think about that pressure cooker.