Things

A quick note:  I truly hope that this post doesn't upset anyone.  I know that this topic is hard and I am keenly aware of hard it is to get "tone" right.  Please read with a grain salt and know that this is actually a post I wrote a few weeks back and saved because I wasn't sure if I even wanted to publish it here.   I did some editing this morning and decided to go ahead with it.  I think this is a universal issue whenever someone loved dearly passes away.  I also think that perhaps it was a blessing in a way that Patrick's belongings stayed with his girlfriend for a while.  It forced us to cope with his loss without having those "things" there to muck anything up.  That being said, it was also pretty horrible to see my family have to go through it all again as the boxes and bags were opened.  It is what it is and it was what it was:  a bunch of people with a lot of pain and no map to guide us through.  We all did what we thought was the best and when thinking failed, we just sort of hung in there and waited it out.  Thanks for reading and letting me sort this out on here.  Love you all... Jenn

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It strikes me how much value we put into things.  I don't mean in the traditional consumerist sense. I'm talking about the things we leave behind and the value of those "things" to those who are left holding onto them.  I have never in my life considered myself the type of person who would feel passionately about those things and their meanings.  I thought I was a "rise above" person who wouldn't feel a longing to hold onto something like a hat, a necklace, a ring.  A car. A house. 

Patrick's things recently made their way back to our family.  They are all with my sister Kathy, as they should be and perhaps should have been a long time ago (perhaps not, depends on who you ask I suppose).  After all this time, seeing it all there in a pile, its like someone ripped the scab off the wound we so carefully tended to.  The bandages were off and we were left standing there, amazed once all over again at how deep the cut was. 

Photos and clothes and basketball shoes.  Shoes worn only on a court, carefully wiped clean and put back in their box until the next pick-up game.  Shoes that were a gift and were cherished and loved as much as shoes can be.  They remind us about Patrick and who he was when he was running up and down the court, who he was when he was coaching kids or goofing around with his friends.  Happy Patrick wore basketball shoes.  The very best of who he was and what he wanted to be.  All while his family and his friends cheered him on from the stands. 

I feel the pangs of longing or the incessant need to hold on to "things" and I feel foolish for it.  In my garage there sits a 1973 Mustang.  It belongs to my sister Kathy, as it was Patrick's car.  It was originally his father's car.  There it sits, yellow and black.  Patrick's car that he towed home from Alabama the summer before he passed away.  We have photos of him standing next to it, grinning away.  He loved the car, yes, but what he really loved was what it stood for:  A budding relationship with a father he never really had the chance to know.  It was a symbol of the family he loved in Alabama and the newly formed bonds he created during his time with them.

 But when you get right down to it...  its just a car.  Its metal and bolts and wiring and tires.  It is classic.  Its everything an early Mach I should be in fact.  Giant steering wheel.  Bucket seats.  A backseat so low to the ground and hard to get into you have to be in your 20s to climb in or out.  It defines muscle car and certainly it is something we have all crane our necks to look at while one rumbles down the road, all testosterone and visceral power.  It is the car that we stare at longingly and think back to simpler times, remembering how much we wanted one when we were 18.

I like to think that my relationship with Patrick was so strong and so awesome that a car or a hat or a shirt could never, never take its place. And they don't, but they make us feel closer to him, like he was just here.  But I am just a human being who sees those "things" the way you might.  They are all we have left. 

We are likely defined by what we leave behind as much as what we took with us.  And while we might feel entitled to holding onto something, and those "things" might help us feel closer to the person we lost... certainly they are just things. They are not worth fighting about or for. They aren't worth making waves over, for certainly we can't take them with us anyhow.  Maybe seeing someone else enjoy the "things" is enough? 

I am in the middle of a learning curve.  I am learning that I, too, want to hold on and hang onto his things.  His things that I have no business longing for and his things that I will never ask for.  My sister's things now.  Things I can visit and look at and hug and smell and remember.  His things that have finally, finally come back, from another life and another time.  Stuff and things that bear no meaning on who we were or how we felt about each other. . 

I hope that my sister takes her time with his things, that she finds comfort in them and holds them dear for as long as she needs and wants.