The Complicated Business of Getting Rid of My Late Husband's Clothes

After my husband's long battle with colon cancer came to an end, I tackled all the items on my "to-do" list with brisk efficiency.

Hospital bed, wheelchair and oxygen tanks returned. Funeral bills paid. Thank you notes written. Check, check and check.

But now, a year after his passing, one daunting task remains: What to do with all his clothes? David was hardly Mr. GQ, but he took meticulous care of his things, so I felt some responsibility to disburse them with the same kind of pride. 

On one hand, his untouched, orderly closet looked like he was just away on a trip and would walk through the door at any moment – too painful to see on a daily basis. But I also didn't want to totally erase his presence, either. Would it be possible to find some middle ground? To keep not a shrine, but perhaps a discreet, well-edited apparel memorial?

So, I pressed on, assembling three Hefty bags — one for giving items away to friends or family, another for donating to charity and a third for the trash. I would make quick work of this chore – an afternoon, maybe a day, at most. Besides, gaining all that extra closet space gave me a powerful incentive to roll up my sleeves and get started.

Almost immediately, though, my momentum fizzled.

I see this plaid flannel shirt he bought at Orvis, a testosterone-fueled outdoors shop around the corner from where he received chemo. With its fly fishing rods and Swiss Army knives, we would often stop there after treatment to peruse the sales racks – an antidote, he said, on those days that he didn't feel particularly rugged or manly.

Moving on, I pull out another shirt – this one a crisp, light blue button-down Oxford dating back to our college years. (He would brag about the longevity of his wardrobe the way others boast about the mileage on their odometer.) Surely, a garment this old would be a slam-dunk for the "give-away" pile. 

But after a few minutes, I retrieve it from the bag, imagining him in the shirt and khaki slacks, the classic uniform of the guys he grew up with, the same ones who would be at his funeral more than a half century later. If he kept a shirt this long, who am I to throw it away?

How about those cargo pants? All those pockets were a brilliant way to stretch carry-on luggage restrictions, he quipped. Also travel-related: The souvenir T-shirts collected over 48 years of vacations. I inhale each one, hoping to catch a whiff of his existence, but it's gone. I keep them anyway.

There are many opinions on the proper time to give away a spouse's clothes and possessions. Some suggest purging as quickly as possible – to "move on." Others recommend not even touching anything until a year has gone by.

"The world leaves us so little permission, so little space to just remember," writes Steve Leder, author of "More Beautiful Than Before: How Suffering Transforms Us." "To remember our loved ones before the disease, the dementia, the accident...in their favorite sweater at their favorite restaurant."

That's what I wanted; a chance to turn back the clock to a time before medical equipment turned our apartment into a nursing home. Before the contents of our refrigerator changed from eggs and milk to morphine, Ativan and Haldol. Before he asked me, as I was emptying his catheter, "Are you sorry you met me?"

One friend, noting my procrastination, suggested that his untouched closet was "depressing...and an escape from reality." But that is impossible when grief seeps into every crevice of my life, whether that's spotting his favorite brand of iced tea at the supermarket to realizing that no one is around to unzip my dress. All those clothes can't "make" me sad because I'm already sad.

In talking with other spouses, I discovered that I am not alone in my desire to opt out. It has been six years since Debby Seguin's husband, Kerry, died of esophageal cancer and she still has hung on to some of his clothes. "We weren't just married, but we worked together 24/7 for most of our 46 years," noting that one of the items she's hung on to is his shirt with the name of their restaurant embroidered over the pocket. "I wore it yesterday," she said.

For Scott Graham, whose wife died of breast cancer 18 months ago, it's still too soon, adding that some of her clothing remains in laundry baskets. "My house is a museum to Elizabeth," he said. "I'm not going to give myself a timetable. It will happen when it will happen."

Kelley Lynn, author of "My Husband is Not a Rainbow," said the task is particularly difficult because the death of a spouse or partner is different than other losses. 

"It changes every single thing in your world...your friend circle changes -- or disappears entirely. Your financial status changes...so does your cognitive function. (Ever hear the term 'widow brain'?) You are handed a new life that you never asked for and don't particularly want."

With the fresh start of the new year, I decide to give it another try. Maybe I'll have better luck starting with something small – like accessories. I grab a soft wool beret, purchased at a Paris kiosk in 2018. As soon as David donned the chapeau he started channeling Maurice Chevalier crooning "Thank Heaven for Little Girls." I remember the lightness of that April afternoon and what a blessing it is to not know what storm is barreling down on us.

I will make another attempt later. But for now, the ordinary has become sacred and all those clothes are still an invisible thread that binds us together. I'm not trying to escape reality – just take a break from it.