Saint Paul, Minnesota Chapter
"We Need Not Walk Alone"
|
Saint Paul, Minnesota Chapter "We Need Not Walk Alone"
|
|
|
The Shirt in the Clothes Hamper The Shirt was at the bottom of the dirty clothes hamper when he died. I found it there when I got around to doing wash sometime after the funeral. Life must go on in spite of what happens to us, and the wash is part of ordinary day-to-day life. It was natural for the shirt to be there; I’d done his wash since he was born twenty-one years before. I stood and looked at it and decided to leave it there. Year after year, wash after wash, I left it there. This was a symbol of normal life. My life wasn’t normal any more, and I left it there to sort of hang on to the past, I guess. It gave me comfort to see such an ordinary, normal thing as one of his shirts in the dirty clothes when my life was so extraordinary now. One by one such “hangings on” is done away with as we slowly re-enter life’s mainstream again. We know the time is right for these habits to go, when we don’t grieve for them when they happen. And they must happen, just as we must move on eventually. One day in a fit of neatness my daughter did the wash, and she washed the shirt. It must have been five years after her brother died. I felt a tiny surprise when I saw the shirt hanging clean in the closet, but I didn’t feel the sorrow or even disappointment. The time seemed to be right for the shirt to leave the dirty clothes hamper. A simple thing, but this was a symbol of progress of sorts. I’m glad no one rushed me – I would have resented it. I was allowed this simple idiosyncrasy until it was natural to give it up. Left alone I probably never would have removed the shirt, just left it there, never really knowing why, but when this happened, I knew I was getting better. Finally, I was letting go, and that was okay. |
|
For More information about the Compassionate Friends, visit the national Web site at: www.thecompassionatefriends.org Send mail to webmaster@tcfstpaul.org with questions or comments about the Saint Paul Chapter web site. Copyright © 2007 Saint Paul Area Chapter. All
rights reserved. |
