As Joan Didion writes in her book, The Year of Magical Thinking, “Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it. We anticipate (we know) that someone close to us could die, but we do not look beyond the few days or weeks that immediately follow such an imagined death. We misconstrue the nature of even those few days or weeks. We might expect if the death is sudden to feel shock. We do not expect this shock to be obliterative, dislocating to both body and mind. We might expect that we will be prostrate, inconsolable, crazy with loss. We do not expect to be literally crazy, cool customers who believe their husband is about to return and need his shoes.”
After the recent death of my mother-in-law, the memory of wearing grief returned. My wardrobe of grief is not only the memory of the clothes I wore for the wake and funeral services. The wardrobe is the grief worn the days, weeks, and months after all the services have finished and the return to daily living begins. It is the one not many people see because it is worn on the inside.
The wardrobe of grief is the memories that keep us going when the tears flow down our face. It is the senses that hold the memories. The wardrobe is filled with the recollections of the favorite clothes worn by those who have passed away: My mother’s sweaters. My father-in-law’s boat shoes. My mother-in-law’s well-worn slippers. It’s the inner and outer garments that often carry the memories for those we love.
Didion writes, “Grief is different. Grief has no distance. Grief comes in waves, paroxysms, sudden apprehensions that weaken the knees and blind the eyes and obliterate the dailiness of life. Virtually everyone who has ever experienced grief mentions this phenomenon of waves.” All it takes is a song, a place, or just seeing my mother’s blue bathrobe hanging up, and I am filled with immediate waves of emotion. Fourteen years after my mother’s passing, I still have a closet full of grief.
Grief turns out to be an experience of memories – both painful and joyful. Grief is a uniquely transformative experience and takes us to surprising places and unearths responses we could never imagine, like talking to an American flag, or a candle, or a set of rosary beads.
Over time, the wardrobe changes and new styles are worn. The wardrobe is comforting. And when it no longer serves its purpose, it will go back on the hanger.