On Closets and Countdowns

My craft room is a disaster. I’ve been working on the room all week, adding shelves to the closet and organizing my collection of craft supplies. No big deal, right? It’s probably taking me days longer than it should because I’m a flibbertigibbet, because I’ve probably been running around too much, and because the ridiculous heat is more powerful than my AC. Well, those are all true statements—not gonna lie. My brain does bounce from one idea (or task) to another, I’ve been busy, and I AM a delicate freakin’ flower in the heat. I’m basically a 5’7″ sweat gland. The aforementioned issues do affect my productivity. The real problem, though, was (is) the prep work required to add shelves to the closet.

The closet in question is in my craft room. That room was also Cooper’s bedroom the last two months of his life. Not a long time, but the last. Until this week, I’ve left his clothes in his closet and dresser. I used the other end of the closet, but didn’t move his clothes. I’m not ready to donate or pitch his clothes; I know I can’t yet part with his few things, but I did convince myself I could fold his flannel shirts and store them in a tote until I can pass the vomit matrix of grief. Right now, thinking of getting rid of his things makes me want to vomit. In this one area, I let myself off the hook if the thought of doing something makes me want to vomit.

I’m sure this quandary sounds foolish and dramatic and stuck-in-grief-ish. I get it. Before Tonya probably would have thought the same thing. After Tonya has just about (not quite) stopped worrying about how grief looks and sounds from the outside. Here’s the thing: Everything I pack away is one touch, one scent, one memory that will never again be as Cooper left it. Never. I live with a finite number of photos, memories, stories, and things. I won’t grumble about clothes that didn’t make it to the washer or dollar bills and receipts left in pockets; what once served as minor aggravations are now connections—thinning, fading connections.

Since I was already a teary, snotty mess after emptying the closet of his clothes, I decided to tackle part of the dresser. Not the top drawer, which holds his cap and glasses and wallet, his notebooks and Bible and note. Talk about vomit matrix. It’s taken me three years (almost) to do the closet. That top drawer is sacred. Still, I worked through the t-shirts, pants, and sweats. Most things went into the tote, but a few were relegated to the bottom drawer, which will turn into the donation zone. I’m not attached to ratty old Fruit of the Loom T-shirts and work jeans. I am attached to the shirts I know he liked. The tote is full of things I can’t let go just yet; the bottom drawer is less full.

Coop would think I was being silly. He was in no way concerned with material things; his possessions are sparse. I don’t think I’m materialistic, but I have a terrible time letting go of his things largely because I have so few things of his to keep.

So it’s been a weird week. I usually love to spend time in that room, but this week it’s taunted me. I’ve found every excuse, every distraction, every reason imaginable to avoid finishing that closet. A Mom Who Knows just said, “baby steps.” I’m glad to have that validation, as baby steps are all I can manage with this task.

I keep thinking about hitting the three-year mark in under a month. Three years. Before Tonya would’ve thought three years plenty of time to get one’s head around a death. Sometimes I’m still hard on myself, impatient with myself, even though I’ve become a Mom Who Knows. I’m working on that. After Tonya remains a work in progress with no completion in sight, much like real-world construction projects.

After Tonya knows three years can somehow feel like an eternity and a day, that words and phrases and cries and expressions from that awful day are fresh in my mind but I’m afraid I’ll forget Cooper’s voice. I know there are days when each exhalation is a sigh and each breath is a battle, days when tears lurk in my eyes and throat and voice. Those days are now, and they are frequent.

It’s possible I chose the wrong time of year for the closet project.

A friend, A Mom Who Knows and a suicide survivor mom, recently commented that she’s thinking of me during this “approach.” Yes, again this year.

I was always a summer girl. I love the sun and the freedom, the chance to run a little wild and have fun not possible during the school year. I love to stay up until the wee hours and sleep until I’m done. I love time to read, to swim, to go for spur-of-the-moment adventures. I always loved summer, and in many ways I still do.

But there’s the approach. The countdown. I’m not necessarily conscious of the countdown every moment of every day. I squeeze plenty of summer into my time off school. Pressing down on the fun and freedom, though, is a darkness. I can feel it. My default right now is sadness or impending sadness. I have to work at cheer. I know what’s coming. June, July, and August are a prolonged and tortuous combination of remembering what was happening during those months in 2020 and knowing how that most awful story ends. When I’m lost in that tangle of memories and lost hope, tears and longing, I forget to breathe. The old, almost-forgotten pain behind my breastbone returns. In these countdown months, three years fall away and become a day.

I’m still processing the TCF conference I attended a few weeks ago. We shared our stories over and over in different sessions, and over and over I heard, “Three years? Oh, that’s still so fresh.” I’m falling back on those words as my countdown marches on toward that day, closely followed by Cooper’s birthday. Is it as awful as the first year? I don’t know. It’s different from the first year, but still terribly hard, terribly permanent—more permanent each day. I know I’ll come out the other side of this season, that I’ll survive, that the world will keep on turning. That knowledge does help, but this is only my third countdown to August 24. I’m still learning, and this particular course of study is brutal.

As always, I write my own truth, but I’m not the only one living some variation of this truth. There are so many of us. Maybe you know our stories, maybe you don’t. Just walk with kindness and gentleness. Judge less, love more.