One Dirty Shirt Left

Right after Grant died, I realized he, as in his body, would not be around to smell wonderful or terrible anymore. I found myself frantically going through the laundry to see if I could find any clothes that still smelled like him. I needed a shirt or something that still smelled of Grant. Damn!  I was too efficient with the laundry.… there was nothing.

Grant died on a Monday evening. Laundry day is Monday.  I always have it all done Monday. I don’t like to do laundry all week, so I have one day when I do it: Monday.  He died on a Monday.  That meant I’d just washed every piece of clothing he’d worn that week.

 I’d washed away all the stains, smells and odor of a body that would never again produce the sights, sounds and smells a body has that necessitates washing clothes.  DAMN, DAMN, DAMN… I cursed myself for being so organized and on top of things that Monday.

All I wanted to do was smell the smell that I'd been so used to.  It had now been 3 days since I’d smelled him. I missed it already.  I hadn’t cried yet. That first cry wouldn’t happen for 1 more day.  I still watched the door waiting for him to walk through it.  The door stayed shut.  But I still held out hope.  In the meantime, I needed the smell of him. 

I then thought, the clothes he died in, I could get those!  I called the mortuary.  They had them, but they said they wouldn’t recommend I take them. They said the clothes were, “uhhhh… not in good shape,” but it was up to me if I really wanted them.

If I really wanted them!? I wouldn’t have called if I didn't.  I didn’t care if they were covered in blood or whatever.  I wanted the smell of his body on them.  They said I couldn't go get them at that time though, till Grant was there again. The clothes had gone with Grant to the autopsy. 

I kept looking through his closet. I residually knew he’d never wear anything from the closet again either. I also knew that I’d have to do something with all these clothes.  What?  I found a pair of swim shorts and shirt he’d worn just a few days before. For some reason he hadn’t tossed them in the hamper. They were partially buried on a shelf. 

I snatched the clothes and buried my face in them, desperately breathing in as deeply as I could, to see if there was a trace of Grant.  There was!  I could smell him all over the shirt.  It was the nice smell, just the essence of him.  There were no other smells or strong scents, just what I remember him smelling like. 

I greedily inhaled while smashing the shirt into my whole face. As hard as Icould take it in, I was inhaling all the possible scent I could.  The smells filtered through the fibers of the shirt. That shirt encompassed the invisible cells of Grants at a time when his body lived. That shirt created the possibility of remembering. 

I couldn’t get enough.  I was so happy!  Thank you Grant!  You didn’t put these in the hamper. It was totally unlike him. He was very efficient and always processed everything almost immediately. He was the kind of husband that always picked up after himself.  A dream, I know!

Picking up after himself was part of his personality, and the way he did things. It’s one reason why he was successful.  He just did what needed to be done, right when it needed to be done.  Sometimes it seemed he was almost more than human with how intensely effective he could be.  Evidence of this was all over his business.

Now, I needed his humanness. I found it, just a little of it. Thank you!

I kept the shirt and shorts near me and would smell them every day.  I know how that sounds.  It was comforting. I needed that comfort.  It was like I could hold on to him being alive, when I knew I couldn’t.

More days passed and I finally picked up the clothes from the mortuary. They’d had them dry cleaned.  DAMN again!  I wanted them dirty.  I could see the stains on them that the cleaners didn’t get out.  It was blood.  I didn’t care.  I wanted to see it real.  Not washed.  I was mad. Who do you yell at for washing your clothes for you?  At least I still had the shirt and shorts.  

Time passed.

I held onto that shirt and shorts for a while, but ultimately left them at the house where he left me.  I went and lived somewhere else.  When I went back months later, I pulled them out of the wooden box I’d hidden them in. I brought them to my face to inhale the scents again.

They’d changed.  They smelled like the wood of the box, and the smell of time.  It wasn’t sweet anymore, it smelled old and musty.  That’s not how Grant smelled.  These smelled like an old man, not the young vibrant man he’d been.  I didn’t like it.

I cried over the loss of the smell.  The one I’d never smell again, because you can’t preserve smells.  It’s too real.  Too human, too fallible not to change. I wasn’t here to smell them every day and it had changed while I was gone, it had faded away.  The clothes didn’t stay the same, just like my life hadn’t. Just like my children who kept growing without their dad there.

 The scent that faded away.  It felt just like the other memories I held, slowly fading with the time that kept passing.  It felt as if all the things I was trying to hold onto were slipping away and no matter how I grasped for them, it wasn’t meant to be. Then I knew. 

These clothes would never smell like him again.  Another thing I’d lost for all time, his smell.  It was gone, a memory I couldn’t hold onto.  I cried, then I surrendered to it. I let go and with it, I let go of trying to hold on. I thought if I didn’t need that smell, maybe I could take another step forward.