Long past the expiration date
It’s been almost 3 years since I bought them for him when he came to visit in October 2005. It took 2 years, 1 month, and 23 days after he died to throw them away: a small jar of Hellmann’s mayo and an even smaller jar of horseradish.
Spurred by Candice’s recent mention of the book, I ordered Love You, Mean It and read it over the weekend, finishing it last night. I couldn’t even tell you what I read in it that got me thinking about the mayo and the horseradish, but it definitely was the book, and in my journal Saturday night, I told A that it was probably time for them to go, and that I’d try to do it the next day. If I had a panic attack, I could take them out of the trash again, wash out the contents, and save the jars to store junk in out on my workbench.
It’s so hard for me to voluntarily get rid of anything he might’ve touched or been connected to in some way, as I had so little after he died. But the fact is, I don’t look at those jars in the fridge, and I wouldn’t have used them myself even when they were still good. I just knew they were there, that he touched them, and that was enough to make them special. I didn’t need the space they were taking up, so it was just easier to keep them there and not really think about them.
So at a little after 10 last night, I headed to the kitchen for something, and while I was there, I opened the refrigerator door, took the jars out, and studied them. What was I looking for? Magic, I suppose. Something meaningful, something telling me I couldn’t throw them away. But all I found was two condiment jars. So I put them in the trash, switched the laundry from the washer to the dryer, and waited to see if I’d have garbage remorse before I left that end of the house.
I did not.
I was okay. A little sad to be letting go, but that didn’t outweigh the sense that it was time to let go of these rather silly, and potentially botulism-inducing, relics. What hurt was the idea of throwing them away, the idea that they never had reason to be used again, and that just isn’t going to change, whether I hang onto the jars or not. Neither is the memory; that is mine to keep.
The tears didn’t come until bedtime, after E reached for my hand in the dark, something he rarely does. And in a quiet voice he asked, "What made you decide to clean out the fridge tonight?" Apparently he’d seen the jars in the bin.
"It was time..," I said. "…Past time, really." He didn’t say much; he knew what the jars had meant to me, and understood that throwing them away was a bit of a big deal. He was the one who saved them for me in the first place.
And then I teared up and sniffled some as I explained a little more, and he kept holding my hand. Sometimes, it’s easier to do things than to talk about them.