there at the back of the closet
by bam
every time i reach in my closet, there it is. often when i reach for one of the ones underneath, it falls on my head.
it’s the first thing i saw, draped over the back of the last chair he sat in, that cold snowy night when we walked back into the house. without him.
really without him.
forever without him.
and there it was, draped. flung. i could see–still can–the cock of his wrist as he flung it. he was just off to tennis the morning the pain came to his chest, to his heart.
my mama, a long-time knitter, of socks when he was off in the army, and blankets for each of her babies, and that sweater for him, for the love of her life, she’d made it. knit, purled, and cabled. i remember the cable was rather a triumph.
and i remember, that night when he died in the midst of a blizzard, the first thing i did when i walked in the house was i reached for the sweater. reached for its cables. its V-neck in red, cream and blue. i took it and wrapped it, and i dropped on the couch.
i had no interest in breathing. did not want, for a minute, to ever take in a breath from a world he wasn’t a part of. i sat there, wrapped in the yarns of my mother and father, for as long as i could. then finally i had to. had to take in a breath, fill my lungs with air that felt missing of something. something essential.
ever since, that sweater, the soft woolen yarns that wrapped me, that shielded, kept me warm as i shook in the wake of unstoppable grief, i’ve carried it with me. moved it from apartment to apartment, to house and to house and to house.
now it sits, at the back of my closet, just out of my reach. but not wholly. if i stand on my toes, and then on a shoebox as well, i can swipe. barely graze it. make it fall on my head.
mostly, it’s just there for the glance of my eye. i wouldn’t be home without it. but now, now that the grief has been washed like a stone at the cusp of a river, now that it isn’t so sharp, not so rough, not so riven with crags, i needn’t grab it and wrap it and rock under the warmth of it. the spell of it, really.
but i do need to know it’s there at the back of my closet.
it keeps the soul of my papa there in the thread of my everyday.
i keep bits of the people i’ve loved all over my house. there’s my grandma lucille in the very top drawer of my dresser. there are her black leather gloves. and maria, my landlady-sister-my teacher of so many things, she is flung over a chair right here by my side, in the old square of lace i always leave out. just because. because there’s no point to put it away.
i have a friend whose mother just recently died. she keeps all her letters right there in the drawer where she keeps all her bills. she needs them nearby. for now, at least.
it’s what we all do. we stitch our whole house with knots of our past, of our heart, of the communion of souls no longer among us.
today in the church i grew up in, today in the church a part of me loves while the other part of me is rather not so enchanted, today is all souls’ day, which really is back-up to the day just before, to the day of all saints.
the souls, apparently, are not yet of the same status. the saints get the first of november. the souls get the second. officially, the souls are defined as the faithful departed. they’ve not proven their sainthood.
oh, all right, then, i’m not going to argue. i am merely the messenger here, letting you in, on the way things are working.
the point is, today is the day for remembering. well, i remember all of the time. because i set up my house like some sort of history trap. it’s a minefield of memories. and i like it that way.
i like to be reaching for that old irish fisherman’s knit. and have my papa fall on my head. or at least the arms of the sweater he wore as he hollered and ran for the net. we can all hear it now, how he let out that shout that made you think someone had died. only it was just him, and the ball that he narrowly missed, before awaking the dead, had any been buried just underneath the court where he played.
i take one look at that sleeve, or the V-neck, and it all rushes back. the good and the bad. the times when my dad in that sweater made me squirm, roll my eyes, want to hide, slink out of my seat. and the time when that sweater, without my sweet papa, made me weep.
it’s all in a swirl. it’s the sweet and the sad.
that’s why the world comes in octaves. our hearts play the notes, low ones and high ones. but without the old knitted sweater, there at the back of the closet, i might not remember the song.
and that would be an unbearable silence.
do you lace your house with snippets of those you have loved? do you find yourself reaching in a drawer for a trinket, stumbling first on something you stop and hold onto, just for a minute, a something you cling to, a something from someone no longer? how do you honor the souls of the ones who you loved?
pull up a chair 
I carry amazing needlepoint purses made by my mother and hug them like stuffed animals. My favorite is the one I carry in fall when the leave start to change. It is a comfy carpet bag-like shape with colorful oak and maple leaves on it. I get compliments in check-out lines and give the bag a squeeze. I almost always wear my one grandmother’s wedding band from 1922 and the diamond of my other grandmother’s engagement ring, made into a necklace pendant. I like feeling close to all the women who came before me!
I too have a cable knit sweater, made by my mother in the 60’s as a gift to her father, my grandfather. As he laid in a hospital bed in his living room and asked to see each of his children, their spouses, grandchildren and great grandchildren one by one during a cold November, he not only offered us words of wisdom, but gave us gifts. Somehow, deep in his soul, he knew one year prior that he had one year left to live, In his last year of life, this home builder and master carpenter made oak treasure chests for all of the boys and sewing chests for all of the girls. These gifts were amazing, especially because in his weakened state he stood out in his cold garage sanding and cutting the wood. There are other gifts too. He gave me the cable-knit sweater that my mom made and his dented aluminum canoe that had been christened in the boundary waters canoe area for many years. A few weeks after giving me the sweater, my grandfather died of cancer, surrounded by his four children and wife. I learned from him that the dying in our midst often have a wisdom beyond our human understanding. It is amazing how they care for those who will live after them. I don’t wear that sweater often, because I want to have it with me for a long time. From time to time, I do put that sweater on and I wrap my arms around me and it feels like he is giving me a hug. Sadly, the smell of grandfather disappears a little bit more each year, but his love remains strong.Another gift that my grandfather gave was a gift for my parents. My grandfather built my parents’ first house and hoped to build their second house, but his cancer came out of remission and changed these plans. Unbeknownst to my parents, one year before my grandfather died, he cut down a number of oak trees on my parents land. They told him he could take the wood. What they did not know is that he had this wood kilned dried and before he died he told my parents all of that wood would be available for all of the trim on the interior of their house. So even though he did not build their new home, his skill and love is deeply embedded in the house.bam, i cherish the cables, as do you!
yes, it is nice to know i am not the only one who keeps things in my path so I can emotionally trip over them through out my home. I just reached into my sock drawer for a dark pair, and once again pulled out the gold toed and darned heel of a pair of my fathers socks, the list of relatives & friendsliving in my home is long, just by their things. Glad to know we are all a bit “mushy” and that all Souls Day is a live and well throughout the year.
I often wear a sweater of my mom’s that still smells like her–somehow–after ten years and many dry cleanings. Actually I have quite a few of her old dresses, flamboyant silks and bright ribbon knits, gorgeous designs from the sixties that I wear whenever I have occasion. These clothes I never would have purchased on my own–far too outrageous for my tastes–I think they help me channel her bright, beautiful confidence. I will never get rid of them.
I was walking my dog tonight with a friend — a hospice nurse — who was awakened twice last night while on call to go see patients one last time in the wee hours. She was so moved and exhausted by what she saw with the families, that she went home and pulled her deceased dad’s shirt around her before she went to sleep. We talked about the things we kept to stay physically connected to those we loved who were no longer here.slj — I was moved by your story, particularly that your grandfather kiln dried the wood. I think it was the intention with which he devised a way to, at least partially, build that second home. .
I just lost a dear friend, from college.so unbelievably and intricately part of each others lives this group, we all were during those four years. since then we have all been far away in space but close in heart . photographs and funny stories and silly gifts from those days kept us tied together even though we were all stretched so far apart. whenever we could be together we picked right up at the very words and laughs, smiles and sighs since we last were within sight. a week after she died I received a package from her sister, one of the friends in this amazing little collection of women.it turns out my friend, now gone, she saved every darn note, birthday card and letter anyone ever sent her.so now i have those little pieces of me that i sent to her starting all those years ago.little pieces to tuck in a drawer to keep those intricacies alive.