After Greg died and I started going through some of his things, thoughts would run through my mind like, “This shirt is still here? How could he leave his sushi shirt behind? He loved this shirt! And this Fawlty Towers episode book? He needs this where he is!” And then I’d realize how silly those thoughts are. But I still go through that thought process. Now that I’m going to sell his car, I keep thinking, “How is he just letting me sell this car that he loved?” It’s like a joke and he’s just dead until he realizes he left his car or that sushi shirt and he’s going to come back to claim it, like “Just kidding! You really think I was going to die without bringing my sushi shirt?”

Greg in his sushi shirt with Squirmy at her 3rd birthday party. He had just finished being a clown. :) This shirt is definitely a keeper!
I even laughed to myself over getting rid of a couple things that he loved and I did NOT. There was one shirt that we’d laugh about because he loved it and I hated it. I’m sure this is a universal husband/wife thing, is it not? If Greg ever put it on for something that I thought was important, I’d have to plead with him to change. I imagined that his ghost was trying to wrestle me to the ground because I was getting rid of that ugly zippered shirt with the collar that had a permanent, dirty crease in it. I’m not sure he really loved it all that much, more that he loved laughing at my reaction to it!
I have saved a lot of Greg’s things, all I have left of him that I can actually touch. Things that remind me of him, things that I can feel and imagine he’s still wearing. I page through a book that he loved, hoping that doing so will make him walk back into the room. I realize that thinking he misses these things is completely ridiculous. But his things that meant so much to him when he was alive, have become so important to me now. And of course, I know the only thing in this life that really mattered to him was his girls. We are what he would come back for…if only that was possible.
xxx,
Mariah