I have a stupid confession to make about clothing. Remember the LA Times article in which I had watched one of the hoarding shows and realized that I needed to figure out that Thomas's closet needed to be dealt with? My husband and I did go to that corner of the basement and opened up the portable closet, going through the jackets and T-shirts that Thomas had left in there. One or two made their way upstairs to Matthew's closet. I think we gave away a bag. And then there were the T-shirts. I keep thinking that I will make a T-shirt quilt out of the vast collection that included school, Army and church events Thomas had been part of so I made a disheveled stack of those and left them on top of the closet. Inside were still some jackets. Friday we went back and looked again, thinking this basement needs to be cleared out. Richard handed me the stack of shirts which, this is hard to describe, had enough body to them to hug. I stood there weeping for a moment over these shirts because I could put my arms around them and I can't put my arms around Thomas. Ultimately the stack made it all the way to my sewing room, in a bag, along with a tie that has owls all over it, courtesy of the Nature Conservancy (a premium of some sort obviously. I think we still have the umbrella with the incredibly homely baby osprey as well). The jackets are mostly pretty nice but the problem is that Thomas was a lot thinner than his dad and narrower than his little brother has grown up to be. Most of the jackets are mediums which won't go over Matthew's shoulders (we'll leave out the problems Richard would have . . .). So now I have to figure out a destination for those.

And my own stuff. In my closet I have two sweaters: a red cashmere hoodie I was wearing the day I said goodbye to Thomas, and the navy blue cardigan I was wearing when they came to tell me he was gone. I did wear both of them afterwards, but the red sweater has holes now and I just got tired of the navy blue. Nonetheless, they will stay in my possession, probably forever.