Soap

This normal looking package of soap has had me in tears all morning... It is one of the last things I bought my husband before he died, and the first of his bathroom items I'm actively going to get rid of.  He told me just before he died that he needed soap and obviously the package was so fresh, he hadn't had time to even open it yet. 

Unlike many widows, when he died I didn't keep his stuff around.  I packed up the things that I really wanted--shirts he had worn that hadn't been washed so I could retain his scent, his cane, his wallet and keys, his hearing aids and wedding ring.  I gave his family the things they wanted, and then I sat with everything for a while.  After 6 months, I cleared everything out.  His office furniture, the clean clothes from his dresser and closet, his shoes.  I kept his coats, a few articles of clothing I could wear, and everything else went.  Except his bathroom stuff. 

The other day, we were in the bathroom cleaning, and Leah opened Mike's drawer.  His razor, deodorant, a box of Q Tips, and a few other odds and ends remained.  I had already packed up and put away the shaver I used to cut his hair, his cologne, and toothbrush.  But these other things had just been sitting in the drawer, and the soap was under the sink.  Leah found it all, looked me square in the eye and said, "Mama, it's time." 

But I can't.  I tried, and I have tried to.  But I just sat on the floor and cried.  So we put everything in the bottom drawer, and left it.  It all feels too personal, too close to home to discard or to give away.  His razor touched his skin, there are bits of hair clinging to it.  I just can't.

But the soap, although it was his, it's just wasteful.  I gave a couple of bottles of electric pre-shave that had never been opened to friends, but no one wanted soap.  I guess no one really uses soap any more, preferring bubbly, soft body wash. 

Last week, I had lunch with friends of Mike's.  Their son, Justin, died less than a year before Mike died.  He was in his 20's and died of carbon monoxide poisoning.  It was devastating and at the time, Mike was so upset and we never thought such a thing happened to people we knew.  And then it happened to us.  To me.  These lovely people have turned some of their grief into a mission at their church to help in Haiti, and went to Haiti last year.  They are going again this year and I asked for a list of supplies of things they needed to take with them.  Soap was on the list.

So Mike's soap is going to Haiti.  I was fairly sure that there was a bar missing from the package, so I was happy to see that the whole thing is in tact.  I'm happy it's going to a place where people so desperately need it.  I'm glad it's being taken by Mike's friends.  I know it's ridiculous to cry over soap.  I don't want to read too much into it, about how this unopened package of soap shows how life just ends and we leave stuff behind, unopened and unused.  It's easy to ascribe meaning to everything, every little tiny thing.  At the end of the day, it's a package of soap, it's not Mike. 

So why can't I stop crying?