Love Notes.

Leaves turn and fall, lying helplessly as they are ground to dust underfoot or whisked away to wait in disheveled piles of decay until they are swept away next spring with winter’s remains. Prettily painted toes vanish into buttery leathery soles and the crisp night air is caught in the fibers of woolen sweaters.  

Autumn has arrived.

And with it a scattered restlessness that permeates my days and my nights as I peer over the edge of another year. The air in the house is no longer angry and cold. Shelves and drawers once filled with the memory of him now lie barren and a garage once filled now lies half empty. Memorabilia has been moved and pictures rehung. Furniture sold and bought. Old routines abandoned and new ones created. Slowly and carefully, the house that was ours has become mine.

Storing a lifetime is messy, a cataloguing of memories and memorabilia that is as frustrating and incomprehensible for the onlooker as it is excruciating and depleting for the unwilling participant. His clothes hung untouched until dust had gathered and the sunglasses stayed where he placed them in the hallway that day. Relics of a life that should not have been lost left frozen in time as though leaving them in place would somehow alter reality. And yet, as the season of decay descends again the memory of him lingers in filing cabinets and drawers, cupboards and boxes.

The house beats with a new pulse, a warm cadence that is oddly comforting as I blow the dust back from boxes and drawers that have waited silently for me. Sifting through aging papers and faded ink, the memories of a life built on shoestrings and pennies pinched come alive.

Tucked between old resumes, household budgets, cars paid off, membership cards and career accolades covered with handwritten notes, it was as though he left it there for me to find in this month when his death looms largest and when I am being forced to reconstruct the deconstruction of our life. Running my fingers over the words, I remember that night.

Sleep well. Love us.