Flowers

The stuff that is left

10.02.12

THIS WEEK, I finally used up the last of my mother’s eye-makeup remover. I found it in her medicine cabinet as I cleared out her things — when? In 2005, when she moved from her condo to assisted living? A year later, when she became paralyzed and had to move into a nursing home? Or after her death in the fall of 2008?

Whatever its age, this fancy little bottle has hung around long past its expiration date. There never was much call for it — my mother wasn’t a big makeup-wearer and neither am I — and its contents have been carefully rationed. She would have eked it out because it was expensive, a small department-store luxury bought on impulse, admired for its chic on the bathroom shelf, infrequently opened since each use meant it was closer to being used up. And I’ve hoarded it because I miss her.

Grief attaches itself to dumb little objects. A friend whose husband died six months ago hasn’t moved his shoes from the spot by the door where he dropped them the last time he walked into the house. Another friend freaked out when someone accidentally overwatered her dead mother’s begonia. It’s not that we are making a sentimental fetish out of every object that ever belonged to the person we lost. We’ve handled the big stuff: donated the clothing, decided what to do with the car. We’ve gotten rid of many small items as well, throwing out hair curlers and underwear and anything else so personal that it would feel like an invasion of the dead person’s privacy to let anyone else see it.

Source: The Boston Globe