Nothing but things and memories

Here I go with another post of possessions. Possessions in the grand scheme of things, mean nothing. When you die, you leave them behind; they certainly don’t go with you. But when someone you love dies, possessions are all you have. So I do a great deal of thinking about possessions, Kaitlyn’s possessions, and I do a great deal of writing about them. They are all I have left of her except the memories I have in my mind of her. Many wonderful years of memories of the best daughter anyone could have ever had. If there was an order sheet one would fill out before you had your baby, she surely came out better than the order would have. She was wonderful.

So when you’re left with possessions, the monetary value of them means absolutely nothing. It’s what is contained within them that mean everything. So possessions are very important to me, especially the ones your loved one’s touched several times on a daily basis.

Today I focus on Kaitlyn’s pocketbook. I see it now in my memory and in not so long ago pictures as it hung on the closet doorknob of her apartment. A very pretty sturdy one with matching billfold. Her former boyfriend told me he had bought both of these for her, and they are the ones she used for months before she died.

I keep it in my small spare bedroom where I put many of her things out of her apartment. The one’s I didn’t give to her sister. I keep it on top of Kaitlyn’s clothes basket that is partially filled with the last clothes she wore; this somehow keeps her scent within the clothes and the pocketbook with her scent there. Last night as I often do, I grab up an armful of clothes and hug them close to me, inhale their scent and pretend it’s her and I cry.

I can just see her the last time we had our day together at the Mall, Movies, and steakhouse with that pocketbook with its strap around her shoulder. As she stood at the counter at Victoria’s Secret as she went into her pocketbook, took out her billfold and credit card to pay for her beautiful purchases. I never found but one of the pieces of clothes she bought. I think she died in them and they never gave me her clothes back, so I couldn’t bury her in the beautiful things she bought. That makes me feel sad and I wasn’t in my right mind to ask for them because we did not go to the hospital before we went back home on that three and a half hour drive.

I think of how many times those tiny, delicate hands reached into that pocketbook, looking for things, getting her billfold out and pulling out her credit cards, or rummaging around in there for the grocery list she made out. She must have handled this pocketbook and billfold thousands times. To me, part of the person is left behind in the things they touched the most. That’s why they mean so much to me. Many times I take out that pocketbook and run my hands over it and go through all the contents left exactly how she left them, and will be left that way forevermore. I see visions and snapshots of her in my mind.

It’s that way with everything I have of hers, which are many throughout my house. I can see her there making some wonderful concoction with her blender, a tasty bagel with her bagel toaster, the wonderful meals she would create with the spices in the spice rack I now have of hers. All the dishes she would make using all the big utensils I have in their pretty wire container. I see her using them. I feel her in them, each and every one.

I am so extremely sad today, which certainly is nothing new since Kaitlyn died, but I sense my sadness is deepening and ingraining into my soul in a way it has not done before. I’ve gotten good at acting halfway normal around people now, though I’m not around people very much since I don’t work now. Oh but what is in my heart is a hurting, sad place.

Sometimes I just cry out that what a waste it is for someone so talented, intelligent, and had everything to live for to take their own life. Why something so beautiful was taken from this ugly world. But I know Kaitlyn’s life was anything but a waste. It was a gift to all that knew her but I cry in the dark of night for what could have been. Why someone so beautiful was given, and then so horribly taken away. I know the main answer; it was depression and all its ugly trickery that makes someone with so much promise think they should not live. I know that. I often wonder how she could have hidden it from us for all these years, but I mainly know that answer too; intelligent people can sometimes be masters of hiding their pain. But all this gives me no comfort as I sit and look at her things and think of what was and what could have been. A person so special that all around her marveled at her, who could have been a wonderful doctor, who still had so very much to give. All I have are her things. Things.

So I think I have answers, then I know I don’t have answers. All I know is the light of my life is gone, though I have loved ones that care about me and worry about me and love me, and I love them. My Kaitlyn has gone and left me and all that loved her, because her pain was too great to stay. Who can make sense out of that?

So I have her things.