There is nothing worse than going through the possessions of a loved one after they have passed on. We think we are prepared for it. After having gone through the wringer with all those tense visits to the hospital, discussions on treatment plans and those final moments when we stood before the grave or the pyre, we believe that a few objects — mere things — cannot make much of a difference.
And bravely, we make our way into that empty house or that empty room and open up the cupboards and stare at the packed shelves.
We have a plan in our heads. First, the clothes, which we will distribute to members of the family, a few close friends, or maybe the underprivileged: Surely that will be easy. One look at an item of clothing should tell us where it should go. Documents and papers, which we will do next, may take a little longer since they need more than a cursory glance before discarding them or assigning them to different piles. Other things — kitchen items, linen and such — do not even get factored in. In any case, all of it is soul-less, isn’t it?
Nothing, therefore, absolutely nothing, can prepare us for what we actually feel as we go about this task.
Suddenly, a loved one’s clothes — even those that are falling apart from constant use — develop a life of their own. They take on the scent and the presence of the person who has gone and as they waft in the breeze on a hanger or are tossed on a chair while we make a decision about where they should be sent, we can almost see our friend / sister / mother in them. And we don’t want to let them go. Not even the threadbare, faded old ‘rags’ that we had often begged them to get rid of because they were worn down from being worn too often. A wardrobe we had always thought of as sparse suddenly seems to be overflowing. There is too much to decide about now, we say, we need some time ...
Back goes everything into the cupboard, we wipe our eyes and march determinedly into the kitchen.
We drag out cold steel, aluminium, china and glass and toss everything into cartons, ignoring the clatter of metal, the chipping of china — refusing to pick up anything for a closer look even if we recognise familiar vessels we had often eaten from with our loved one. Thus, with eyes half shut and emotions in check, we get one room sorted out.
That was not bad, was it, we think. It got done. Now we can move on to the next. How terrible could the paperwork be?
We are soon to find out.
Every slip of paper on that desk, every newspaper cutting, every document in the making has us wondering: Why was this important? How precious were these scraps? What was she thinking of when she wrote this? What did she plan to do with it? Was it part of her next project? How many dreams were left unfulfilled? Should we keep these — and wait for inspiration from another dimension, so that we can complete those projects in her name someday?
With so many questions flitting in our minds, decisions take hours, often days and weeks — and sometimes they never get taken.
Sometimes, we just wind up standing before a bonfire with a lump in our throat, watching it all go up in smoke, telling ourselves that our loved ones live on in our hearts and not in their possessions. And wondering why, then, we feel we are losing them all over again as we let go of those possessions.
Cheryl Rao is a journalist based in India.
