Some people crave and cultivate a minimalist lifestyle, limiting their purchases and belongings to what is most needed. Others struggle with avoiding good deals on things they do not need and have difficulty culling their collections or even throwing away garbage. I try to strike a balance somewhere in the middle, sans garbage. I understand the importance of order while at the same time preferring that furniture have drawers or hiding places for excess stuff. Horse on the other hand, definitely fell into the latter category. He had a wizard-like ability to make more of his things appear wherever I looked – drawers that had been previously empty would suddenly be bursting with opened mail, coins, knives, and business cards.  

For 19 years we lived together in this house. Within its walls, 45 years of his accumulated belongings resided on the top floor of our one and a half story home, although quite a bit trickled down onto the main floor during that time.  His organizational style was a continuing source of frustration between the two of us. I was frustrated because it was a mess and we could have used the space more wisely. His frustration stemmed from my desire to organize his things and (in hindsight) the passive aggressive jabs I’d make upon finding batteries in every drawer. The steps were a tottering maze of boxes and papers, video gear and electronics placed in organizational limbo. At the top, more boxes and totes, piles of papers, more video gear, and a path to the old desktop he never used anymore. Luckily, I only needed to venture up the perilous steps if the router or modem needed to be rebooted, so I did my best to forget about the anxiety-inducing disaster.

For the six months after he died, I continued to avoid the upstairs and worked at cleaning up the main floor. It was easy enough to keep the door to the second floor closed and pretend it didn’t exist. But after a while, the weight of all his stuff became too heavy to bear. I could feel it pressing down on me from above; physical memories piled like bones, some familiar and many others unknown to me. It made me exhausted just thinking about it. 

I had family and friends offer their help to go through his things, but it was too hard – both from a practical sense as well as emotionally. There was so much junk mixed in with it all  Everything had to be looked at. I waded through old billfolds still containing punch cards to long closed restaurants and computer accessories that I am not tech savvy enough to identify on my own. During these sorting sessions, my emotions are all over the place; one minute I’m rolling my eyes at the number of receipts he kept from Supercuts and Fantastic Sams (all of them), to immediate tears at finding an old note I had written him before leaving on a trip, to exasperation at the number of light bulbs squirreled away. And was this the 150th flashlight or the 151st? 

While I’m desperate to get my home organized, I’m also terrified of throwing out something that is important. So I open every envelope. I peel out old bills from 2006 just in case there’s hidden treasure inside before throwing it in the shred bag. I’ve gathered post-it notes and scraps of paper with his handwriting – names of movies and dvd release dates, Christmas present ideas, and shopping lists – small moments in time, pieces of him left for me to find. I’ve taken photos of things that I couldn’t keep, but still wanted to remember. 

I’m constantly apologizing to him as I go through his stuff when, after solid deliberation, I determine that I don’t know what something is and I just can’t keep it (many times it looks like it might be garbage, but you never know). That’s when the anger in me rises hot in my chest and I say out loud, “well, you should have dealt with this or told me what everything is!” Our cat, Rosemary will often turn her head at my voice and look at me like I’ve lost it. If my outburst is followed by wracking sobs, she usually steps out of the room. I can’t blame her. There are times I wish I could step away from myself too. 

Of course the memories of him reside within my roller coaster mind, not in “stuff,” and I will continue to sort through his things again and again, I’m sure; however, many of these possessions often jog memories I hadn’t thought of in years. Right now, they are a physical connection to him that a memory alone can’t provide. His shirts that I wear to bed laid soft against his skin, his squishy pillows that he took on each hospital visit and kept close all through hospice still smell like him (I can’t even describe the scent, I’ve come to just think of it as Horse). When I am having a bad moment, I’ll hold them close, breathing in the smell of him – I suspect I look ridiculous with my face buried in a little squishy animal print pillow, but the automatic peace and smile from the action is worth the judgment. I dread the day those remaining traces of him are gone.

So you’ll forgive my purchase of thirty or so new totes to sort and store his things while I work through my grief. It isn’t just our past and his life that I am trying to get sorted, but my life as it is now. Maybe if I can eliminate the disorder in the house, it will transfer to this new existence of mine – as if the shedding of clutter will bring forth something new – soft pink flesh replacing my old scales. 

In the meantime, I’m almost positive it was the 151st flashlight I found.