Just As They Were…

When I go home to visit my dad, it still feels different without my mom there. It’s been almost seven years now since my mother died from metastatic breast cancer, so you’d think her presence, or rather her lack of physical presence, wouldn’t still be such a palpable thing. But it is. I am, of course, more used to how the house looks, feels and smells with her no longer there. I call it my dad’s house now, not my parents’ house, not mom and dad’s house, not grandpa and grandma’s house. Most of the time these days, I feel I’m doing a decent job of carrying on as a daughter without a mother. I never forget of course, but I have learned how to handle my life without a mother in it. Or I think I have.

And then when visiting my dad recently and doing something ordinary, like looking for another roll of paper towels, out of the blue I am reminded that it’s still hard, harder than I ever thought it would be…

As I meandered into my parents’ bedroom on my way to the closet (because my dad stores extra paper towels in one of the closets in that room), I passed by the dresser and there they were…

There they were; my mother’s watch, my mother’s glasses and one of my mother’s many pins. There they were, still lying on her mirror tray looking the same, the way she had left them there a thousand times before. There they were, as if still waiting for her to come into the room, stand in front of that dresser, pick them up and put them back on. After nearly seven years, there they were. Just as they were.

The emotions stirred up by seeing those personal items caught me by surprise, as if they had settled inside of me for too long, not unlike the dust that had settled on that old bronze-framed mirror tray.

Why were they stirred up that day?

After all, I’ve passed by that dresser many times since my mother died.

This is the way grief is. It comes and goes. And then it comes again.

I glanced around the bedroom and noticed how so many other things were still just as they were too. In fact, in nearly seven years not much has been rearranged. My dad likes it this way. It’s comforting for him to keep things just as they were.

It’s very sweet, I think as I stand in front of that old dresser and smile at the reflection in the mirror; the reflection of a daughter who has no mother. But in a way, she still does.

As long as I have memories, my mother is with me still.

And my dad is right.

It is nice to keep some things,

Just as they were…

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Do you (or does someone you know) keep some things just as they were?

How do you refer to the house you grew up in?

Have you experienced the death of a parent?