And Now She is Gone

Category: what’s floating around my head

  • Monster Kid, Grown Cranky

    Monster Kid, Grown Cranky

    Halloween is not what it used to be.

    Before I continue, warning: the following rant may contain a few “grumpy old man” moments.

    Halloween was, for a long time, kind of sacred to me. I loved everything about it—the monsters, the movies, the decorations, the costume parades at school, and the way that, for a few weeks every October, the whole world seemed wrapped in a warm, fuzzy blanket of things that go bump in the night.

    These days, though, some of the luster is gone.

    Losing my wife, who was every bit the Halloween fan I was, certainly had something to do with it. Halloween will always carry a little of that loss for me now. But if I’m being completely honest, the shine had already started to wear off long before she passed.

    I think one of the first signs came in the form of Spirit Halloween.

    The first time I saw a Spirit store, I was genuinely excited. To me, it was basically Toys “R” Us for monster kids. You walked through the doors and suddenly you were surrounded by costumes, masks, creepy decorations, movie memorabilia and all kinds of things that, frankly, I didn’t need but absolutely wanted.

    And at first, the stuff was pretty damn good.

    They had a great selection of costumes, and I was especially impressed with the makeup and special-effects products. For those of us who grew up loving horror movies and Halloween, it felt like somebody had finally opened a store just for us.

    I mean, this was a place where a grown man could walk in and seriously consider buying a Jason Voorhees bobblehead.

    And yes, I was that grown man.

    For a while, Spirit Halloween seemed to understand its audience. They weren’t just selling Halloween costumes. They were selling nostalgia. They were selling to the kids who grew up watching Friday the 13th, A Nightmare on Elm Street and Halloween—the kids who had a poster of Freddy, Jason or Michael Myers on their bedroom wall instead of bands and sitcom stars.

    My wife and I would make our annual pilgrimage to the store, usually with our nieces and nephews, and we’d wander the aisles while they hunted for costumes.

    Those trips were part of the fun.

    But somewhere along the way, I started noticing a decline.

    The stuff that initially felt fun, clever and genuinely made for Halloween fans started getting replaced by an increasing amount of cheap, disposable junk. The novelty wore off. The aisles seemed less like a playground for monster kids and more like a warehouse of things designed to fill a shelf.

    And eventually, I stopped seeing the magic.

    The last time I was in Spirit Halloween was two years ago.

    From what I see now, so much of what passes for Halloween merchandise seems to be mass-produced, soulless and increasingly filled with AI-generated garbage. Maybe that’s partly my nostalgia talking. Maybe I’m just getting older. Hell, I warned you there would be some grumpy old man moments.

    But I don’t think that’s the whole story.

    The other part of this that gets under my skin is the popularity of the horror genre. On one hand, I’m ecstatic to see so many people flocking to it. I’m not gatekeeping here. I love and embrace more people enjoying the genre that has brought me so much joy and peace. But it’s getting crowded.

    Throughout elementary and middle school, I was ridiculed for wearing a Jason Voorhees tee (he has always been my favorite psycho). Aside from my father, the only person I had to talk shop with was my friend Melvin. We spent lunch in the hallway talking about horror, comics and all the other ’80s obsessions that are suddenly acceptable.

    I mean, EVERYONE loves Weird Al now. NOBODY at my school was an open Weird Al fan when I was 12. Son of a… ahem. Sorry, remember the old man rant warning…

    Within the crowd of new horror fans, something feels off to me. I’m seeing a trend: horror as an aesthetic, with no substance. Art the Clown tee? Check. Cool horror posters on the wall? Check. Creepy-cute Halloween decorations? Check. Everything looks perfect for the next Insta post, visually pleasing and clickbait ready. But if you dig into the reasons behind their love of horror, you may start to see what I’m talking about.

    Nine times out of ten, when you ask an Insta-horror fan why they love the genre, you get generic answers. “It’s fun.” “It helps me face my fears.” They can hold a decent conversation for a few minutes, but eventually they run out of remembered material and the conversation falls flat. They can only pull from the most popular films, the ones everyone talks about. Ask what they thought of Ganja & Hess and they come up short. Bring up horror as a mirror to society and you might see something snap in their brain. Their love seems tied to the genre’s popularity.

    And no, you don’t need to have seen every obscure film. Plenty of us started with the same popular ones. It’s the curiosity that’s missing.

    Curiosity is what fueled my love of the genre. Horror of Dracula (1958) was my introduction to the character, and it sent me back to the 1931 Universal Dracula, which moved me to read the novel. Eventually I landed on Ganja & Hess, a vampire film like nothing I’d seen before. That’s what being a fan does to you: it makes you hungry for more. Good or bad, you devour it all because you feel like you have to. For your own well-being, not for clicks.

    And finally, and I feel this may be where I lose some of you: the costumes.

    If I have to talk to one more “sexy” character at a phucking Halloween party, I will vomit. Especially a “sexy” psycho.

    Sexy Freddy Krueger? The dude murdered children! A short skirt and heels do not remove that character trait.

    Sexy Leatherface? If you find any aspect of Leatherface sexy, You need help

    As for the sexy nurse and nun bit, that brings up a whole new level of disturbance I’m not prepared to venture through today. You can face that on your own.

    So no, Halloween isn’t what it used to be. But I’m not hanging up the mask yet.  I’ve still got my monsters, my movies and a lifetime of weird. These days my Halloween nights are spent on the couch, a bowl of popcorn and an ice-cold Slurpee while I watch one of my comfort spooky movies.

    Happy Halloween.

  • I Want to Die: Four Words That Can Mean Two Different Things

    I Want to Die: Four Words That Can Mean Two Different Things

    A quick note before you read: this one gets into suicidal ideation, a hospital stay, and grief. If any of that is heavy for you right now, take care of yourself first—the 988 Lifeline (call or text) is there any time, day or night.

    I just finished Hacks. I can’t say I loved it—not really my cup of tea—but it certainly left an impression. Chock-full of memorable lines, one of which has stuck with me since I first heard it.

    Season 4, Episode 6: Ava angrily quits her job and walks down to the beach at night. Deborah tracks her down, mistakes another redhead in the ocean for her, and swims out fully clothed to rescue the wrong woman. When Deborah turns around and screams, “I thought you were drowning yourself!”, Ava sighs and replies, “Yeah, I’m not suicidal. I just want to die.”

    One morning, a few months after losing my wife, I found myself in the hospital. The whole incident is kind of a fog-induced blur—I just know that I was scared. The official diagnosis was severe depression with suicidal ideation. When I heard the word suicide, years of repressed Baptist guilt came rushing to the surface, and I suddenly felt like I was doing something wrong, as if there were a right way to grieve. I didn’t know how to unpack the word, or what it meant to—or for—me.

    I’m not suicidal. I just want to die.

    People hear “I just want to die” and think it’s about ending something. It isn’t. It’s about the fact that something has already ended.

    When you lose the person you built your future around, you don’t just lose them—you lose the future itself. Every plan that had her in it. Every version of getting older that assumed her name would still be there. That future didn’t fade or change shape. It died the same day she did.

    So when I say I don’t want to be here, I’m not talking about here as in alive. I’m talking about here as in this version of the world; the one where I’m asked to build a new future out of a life I never chose and never wanted. Nobody gave me a say in it. I just woke up one day and the future I’d been living toward was gone, and everyone expected me to want a different one instead.

    That’s not a death wish. That’s grief refusing to pretend the math still works.

  • A Target Shelf, a House-Elf, and a Memory

    A Target Shelf, a House-Elf, and a Memory

    She actually squeaked when she spotted Dobby sitting on a shelf in Target.

    Give her a character who’s misunderstood, picked on, beaten down, or carrying some emotional weight that nudges them toward bad choices, and she latches on instantly—like a mother desperate to protect her child.

    We never had kids—by mutual decision early in our relationship—but I think that instinct never disappeared. It just found somewhere else to go. You can see it in how she reacts to characters like Loki in the MCU, or Sméagol in Lord of the Rings.

    That need to nurture, to shield something vulnerable, didn’t fade—it just shifted. From the idea of a family to a shelf full of pop culture misfits who, in her eyes, deserve someone in their corner

    Dobby hit her hard. The moment he first appeared in Harry’s bedroom, she was hooked.

    So, I wasn’t surprised when she picked him up and looked at me with those “can I?” eyes—the same look I’ve perfected and used on her at least three times as often as she’s ever used it on me.

    I folded, like I usually do, and just like that, we had our very own house-elf.

    I hadn’t thought about him in a while—sorry, Dobby—until I noticed the little cobwebs. Instantly, I was taken back to that Friday evening wandering through Target with her.

    I took him down, cleaned him off, and gave him a new spot. I find myself doing this a lot now that she’s gone—shifting.

    There’s nothing that can prepare you for a loss like this. Over the past year, I’ve had to shift into a life of being single again. But it’s nothing like being single before I met Katy. Everything is different.

    So, I shift, again and again, just to keep from stumbling along this new path.

    Much like Dobby, I find myself in a new place—or at least learning how to shift into it. With a new perspective, and maybe just a little bit of magic, I think I’m going to be okay.

  • The Catharsis of Noise: Finding Peace in Punk After Loss

    The Catharsis of Noise: Finding Peace in Punk After Loss

    As I was processing my wife’s death, I listed to a lot of music. TOOL helped me process the anger and guilt, Pink Floyd made me look inward,and RUSH connected me to better times of my youth. John Denver and the singer-song writers of the 70’s connected me to Katy; she loved Jim Croce. I would mix in various playlists along the way; Apple is a good source of music – 80s Movie Soundtracks and Classic Punk Essentials have become regular plays.


    Classic Punk, the 70’s and 80’s era, is a genre I’ve hovered around for some time. Every heavy metal fan dips their toes into the Punk pool at some point. As a teen groups like Black Flag,The Dead Kennedy’s and the Ramones were known to me. Husker Du and The Melvins I was aware of, and I did not even consider Elvis Costello or the Police as early Punk examples! The longer I hung around the genre, the more I recognized that it is the perfect soundtrack for grief. I understand the hesitancy to accept this one, but hear me out. It’s a record I’ve been playing for the past few years; I think I can make a good argument.


    The first side of this record is about anger and aggression. I was on the edge in those early months after she died. I couldn’t tell you why I was angry, At GOD maybe, Katy for hiding her scans from me. I was a boiling kettle of emotions. Anger is embedded in the fabric of punk. Political and Socio-Economic rage, anger at the mainstream, alienation. These were constant themes in the music. Watching Darby Crash writhing on the stage while singing (Or mumbling, if I am being honest) Manimal was kind of cathartic. Rollins screaming in my ear “Drinking black coffee, staring at the wall / Anger and coffee feeding me” as I would do that very thing was a special moment in my mornings.


    The early stages of grief can be filled with a lot of anger, a volatile, aggressive anger that burns hot and doesn’t know where to go. Listening to punk gave that fury a home; it channeled those ugly, overwhelming emotions into something constructive. But things shifted completely when I sat behind a drum kit. Learning to play those songs was a whole different level of relief. Hitting the drums became a physical manifestation of my pain. Every snare hit was a scream, and every kick drum was a way to smash through the wall of numbness, exhausting the anger until there was finally room to breathe.


    Let’s look at the second side of this record: chaos. Punk is chaotic, and so is grief. When you lose a life partner, your world rips in half. You are forced to navigate a terrifying new space without the one person you trusted implicitly. Early punk bands mirrored this exact shift. They lacked talent but possessed an abundance of passion and raw emotion. Those kids didn’t know what they were doing, yet they played anyway. This DIY ethos was famously summarized in a 1977 zine cartoon: “This is a chord. This is another. Now form a band.” The priority was raw, unpolished survival over formal ability.


    When you first arrive in Griefville, everything is raw fury. Like those early punks, you have no idea what you are doing. It’s like waking up, swinging your feet out of bed, and stepping directly into ice-cold water when you only know how to doggie paddle. For me, punk music was the life preserver. Those kids just wanted to make noise and share it with friends. They surely questioned if it was worth it, breaking through walls of self-doubt to realize the music was saving them. That is the heart of punk—it isn’t about perfection, it’s about survival. I am channeling that exact, unpolished chaos to fight my way through the suffocating chaos of grief.


    I never thought I’d rely on punk music for my mental stability. But then again, most of my fellow Gen-Xers are finding that everything in our 50s falls into the “I never thought I’d experience this” category.


    Punk is the perfect companion to grief. Everyone’s soundtrack looks different. Some choose to cry alone in a dark room; others want to smash things. Mine is built on raw screams, out-of-tune guitars, and a blood-soaked Darby Crash reminding me I’m not alone.

  • Sit With It, Matthew!!

    Sit With It, Matthew!!

    “You need to sit with those emotions”-My therapist tells me this at least every third session. Supposedly, facing the myriad of emotions left behind by the death of my wife is necessary. And while I understand the purpose behind the words, I don’t like them. The experience makes me feel uncomfortable, sometimes forcing me to pay attention to that part of me that needs it.


    I am very good at avoiding.


    Wait—I should be honest. I have been IGNORING a lot of what has been tumbling around my brain for the past year. If you avoid something, there is some presumption of tackling the issue later, maybe at a better time. To ignore the issue means, well, out of mind, out of sight.


    I spent the past year wandering in a cloud of THC. I turned away whenever the pain pounded. If it is an action that causes the pain, I stop. If the destination was a trigger, I do not go.
    The memory ambush is the hardest. When I see a coffee mug she favored, or hear her voice in a recording from the past, these are the moments that hit hard, and they hit low. How can I be expected to sit and hold hands with dark and uncomfortable things?


    It’s easy to just get high and zone out on X-Files, but eventually it catches up. And when this type of clog breaks, it’s often messy. Like congealed grease in a clogged drain.


    It’s taken some time, but I see that the emotions I’ve been ignoring are a part of me now; they are a part of the experience that was my life with Katy. I don’t want to forget any part of it, even the bad.
    One of the last things Katy said to me was- “You have more story to tell”. It was the inspiration for my tattoo, and what I am hoping will drive me to better days.


    So, I am going to sit with the emotion when it hits. I’m gonna see where it came from, and I’m gonna look at it until it’s not as intimidating anymore. It will shrink to a more manageable size, and then I’ll tuck it away, someplace neat and out of the way. It will still be there, and maybe one day I’ll need (Or maybe WANT) to look at it again, and I’ll know where it is.


    And eventually I’ll have more room for my new story.

  • What’s In The BOX!?!?!

    What’s In The BOX!?!?!

    I’ve been struggling lately, especially with letting go. For three months, four boxes of chinaware for Goodwill and one box of Katy’s things for a friend have sat untouched—I keep making excuses instead of dealing with them. Usually, I’m good at procrastinating, but this feels different.

    How might you ask? I was scared; these boxes held items important to my wife. The chinaware was among our first purchases after moving in together. Katy loved hosting and always had creative party ideas. One Halloween at work, she made “Texas-Chainsaw mac and cheese” for the potluck. COME ON!!!

    Unfortunately, she never got to use her chinaware, and I am NOT the hosting type, so I took it to Goodwill. The box going to a friend contains the dessert cups Katy used when she made the Guinness Pub Pudding for one of our gatherings along with some shirts I didn’t want to share with just anyone and some Tomte related items, Katy and I both had a love of Scandinavian lore and history. 

    I dropped off the items at Goodwill and mailed off the package this morning. 

    Whew.

    And now I’m sitting here feeling good. The empty spaces the boxes once occupied make the room seem larger, not empty. It’s a satisfying sense of accomplishment.

    With the support of my therapist, I recognized that it is a normal response to feel apprehensive about this process. Each item had significance from my time with Katy, and parting with them at Goodwill raised concerns about relinquishing connections to those memories. There were a couple of ways in which I approached the process. 

    First: What am I afraid of? If others can enjoy owning a nice set of china even a little as much as Katy did, that’s positive. I imagine a young couple finding it at Goodwill, feeling proud to afford a nice set. She would appreciate that.

    Second: The material is not the memory. Yes, a material item can trigger the memory; but the memory, the images, smells, and sounds of the moment tied to the item will always be within you. She is not IN them. If I am honest with myself, she is in the urn on the bookshelf, surrounded by her Stephen King Books. Just the way she wanted it. All the memories I have of her are tucked safely away in my mind. 

    Have I lost a part of me? Yes, but what I am missing now is not in any of Katy’s former belongings. I’ve lost a part of me. I recall something my mother frequently said when Dad was deployed while we were children. “It is not easy being a mom without your father here with me, try playing baseball with only one arm.” I did not get it then, now I do. When Katy Died, a part of me died as well. It’s that simple. I feel like I’ve lost one leg and I am learning to walk again. 

    This morning was a step in the right direction. A small step, but an important one. Next up…her books.

  • Got Kind of Dark Last Night.

    Got Kind of Dark Last Night.

    I was on the fence about sharing this. It’s heavy and I don’t want to scare any of you. Also, because it contains some triggers regarding suicide, so this is your warning.

    Still with me….are you sure?

    Last chance to turn back.

    Okay then. First, please know that I am okay. I am working through a lot these days and I just got overwhelmed last night.


    Here is what happened…


    Remember that game as a kid where someone would yell “DOG-PILE!!” and everyone would pile on top of some random kid?-Boys are dumb-Were you ever the unfortunate soul that was at the bottom of that pile of adolescent BO and arbitrary boners?


    Currently, I feel like the kid at the bottom of the pile.


    Last night I sat down to watch a movie, The Electric State on Netflix (not bad), it has an emotional ending, and I lost it. I can’t tell you what happened during the last 10 minutes of the film because I was watching it through a curtain of tears.


    And I couldn’t stop. For the next 20 minutes I was a slobbering mess. As I sat there trying to pull myself together, my angst driven mind decided this was a good time to bring up the fact that I am currently jobless, and that I am responsible for two cats and my 73-year-old father. Oh yeah, and your wife died…let’s not forget that.


    I ended up in the ER. I did not know what else to do.


    It felt like everything was closing in. I was having trouble breathing through the seemingly unstoppable crying, and I was shaking so badly I think the cats could feel it through the floor as both came into the room and were staring at me with concern.


    With everything that was running through my head at that moment, there was one thing that hit me like a brick-it is the reason I asked my dad to take me to the ER. Out of nowhere, the following idea formed.


    If I was to find myself in a life-or-death situation, I would choose death.


    This thought ran through my head in NEON like some kind of news warning flashing across the TV screen. It was a form of thought that I have never experienced. Not out-right self-harm, but the willingness to just…give up. It scared me. I have NEVER thought of harming myself in any way. Has this always been here? If so, when did it start to root itself into my mind. Was it just waiting for the right time to make itself known? It suddenly felt like the words of that statement were alive and they were trying to push their way to that part of my brain that would make it all real. These words were strong, and in my current state I was not sure how long I could fight them. So, I asked my dad to take me to the ER.


    Again, I’m okay. I promise. They would not have let me come home if i was a danger.


    All of this from a 4-minute scene in a movie.


    The point of me sharing this is to remind everyone that grief will always be with those of us that have lost a loved one. That grief will affect us differently, but we all feel it. I know it will get better, easier to think about her. But the pain of losing her will always be there-that is something I will live with. There is no preparation for this. There is no map to help navigate grief. That is why it is important to have a support network. A group of people you can trust that can make sure you are okay, stay healthy and in some cases help with bills or cleaning the house.


    If my father had not been a shout away, I am honestly not sure how the night would have ended. I do not believe I would have harmed myself, but I probably would have worked my way into some level of cardiac event. Having him take me to the ER last night was a good decision.


    I miss my wife. So far, the pain has not lessened. There is a part of me that is missing now that she is gone. And that is okay, I gave here that piece. I wanted to her to have some of me with her during her next chapter.


    Again. I am okay. I promise.

  • Boobs and Blood as Therapy.

    Boobs and Blood as Therapy.

    This blog post is gonna be a little bit different than what you are all used to.


    As I navigate this scary new world I now inhabit, I take pleasure wherever I can find it. Most of the time that pleasure comes in the form of music. New albums and concerts have been a big part of my therapy. Films have been a nice distraction as well. This year marks the 45th anniversary of my favorite horror franchise, Friday the 13th. These films have been a part of my life since I saw Part 2 at the age of 9 and I have been hooked ever since. If Halloween opened the door for the “unstoppable” slasher genre film, Friday the 13th used the heads of horny teens to prop it open. My wife Katy HATED these movies, but she would sit and watch them with me from time to time and the couch would quickly become The Satellite of Love from MS3TK. I have always been aware of how ridiculous these films can get, that is part of the attraction for me; I believe that if I had had more time Katy might’ve grown to appreciate their entertainment value.


    The franchise has had some classics-The first film and FT13: New Beginning are often recognized as modern horror landmarks-and there have been a few forgettable entries-Jason Takes NY is kind of lame-but even the worst of these films entertain on some level, if you can’t enjoy the sleeping bag kill in New Blood, I can’t help you friend.


    Friday the 13th also introduced me to the concept of “less is more”. My introduction to the franchise was in the form of made for TV cuts. All the boobs and blood were removed. There is something more intense about these films when they were cut properly, they are more effective without the gore and jump scares. To this day, I prefer NOT to see the monster until the last possible moment, and I like my kills in the form of some well mixed sound from off screen. As I got older and was able to watch the films in their original cuts my love of them grew. As the kills became sillier, the “jump scares” became more obvious and the plots just disappeared each of the movies became more comforting to me. Now they often play in the background as I’m building a LEGO set or doing a crossword. I still line up for theatrical re-releases; and yes, one is playing as I type this. And every Friday the 13th weekend I randomly choose two to binge.


    Find what makes you happy and embrace it. Comfort yourself in your own way, particularly when grieving. And my thanks to Jason for offering a distraction as I navigate life without Katy. Your support is appreciated.

  • Do They Feel it Like I Do?

    Do They Feel it Like I Do?

    Last night, as I lay in bed staring at the ceiling, I could hear one of the cats in the hallway crying. This has been happening a lot. It is usually Mirren. She sits in the hallway, crying out. As I listened, I thought about what losing Katy must be like for the cats. Confusion, maybe? Do they feel her loss? I’m sure they do, not the same way I feel it, but they feel it.


    For the cats it was sudden. One morning Katy was not in her spot on the couch. For them she just left. They never did go into her room when the Hospice bed became her permanent place of rest. She was not there to greet them in the morning with those loving caresses and kind words she always shared first thing. For them I imagine it is an emptiness that they can’t explain. Her scent still lingers in the house, but they can’t find her.


    They may not have the emotional attachment to her memory that I do, or maybe they do. But I am sure they feel her loss. It would explain why they both, Mirren especially, have been clinging to me at every step. The minute I open the bedroom door in the morning, they are both sitting there, waiting for me to open the door. Or maybe they are waiting for her, hoping that she steps out again. When my work day is over and I sit on the couch in the evening, Mirren is immediately on my lap. I wish I could explain to them what happened, give them both some kind of closure.

    I just tell them she is on vacation.

  • Its a Mess

    Its a Mess

    He stands in the doorway looking over the mess. It’s her mess. Not as in she is responsible for it, but it is her stuff.
    In one corner he stares at a pile of pens. It is a hulking mass of writing tools including highlighters, dry erase markers, crayons and even a few pencils. He sees one with “Akeela and the Bee” stamped across it and he thinks about when they saw the movie. It was one of those special pre-screenings where they asked your opinion after the show. When they were done the young lady gave her the pencil and she loved it.
    He looks over the many notebooks and folders she collected over their 20 years together. She always asked him to stop off at many an office supply store, “Let’s see if there are any new releases” she would say as they entered. He would say the same thing whenever he entered a record store, and she would mimic his delivery perfectly every time. When the back-to-school sales started she would get excited, Saturday would become a loot day for her. Some days she would buy nothing; on other days she should fill the cart. He would watch her in those moments. She would meticulously examine each notebook, taking in the aroma of fresh paper and cardboard. As she ran her fingers along the binding, she would smile at him and relay the many ways she will use the notebook. He knew that most of them would go unused, but it didn’t matter to him. This was as close to a religious experience she would get so he let her have it.
    Now he sees another stack of notebooks. These are worn and used, and they scare him. He can see short phrases or solitary words written across the front to remind her of what is in them. Sometimes, during her down time, she would just write. Even in the worst parts of her treatment she would write. He would watch her writing in that chair, an IV pumping poison into her. She did not write for any purpose on those days. She wrote to forget why she was there. She wrote just to write. These scare him because he knows what they will bring. Emotion. Those are her words in there, her thoughts and he cannot handle those yet. Someday. Not yet.
    He sees a jar filled with small slips of paper. This was a gift for her. Each slip of paper has compliments and short phrases of endearment. “This is for those day you are feeling beaten and alone.” He says as he gives it to her. He never asked her if she read any of the slips. Now he decides to take a look and discover not only had she looked at them, but she also wrote her own notes on them. This one says, “never let him go” on the other side of “You are beautiful” and this one has “how lucky I am” on the back of a slip with “Kiss me, just because” on it. He puts the lid back and sets it down. He will keep this as well.
    Looking at the room one might think it is a mess. He sees it differently. Each of the pens she left behind brought her some happiness. Every notebook was a comfortable place for her to escape. He knows that he should get rid of this stuff, but it is hard to do when each one comes with emotion. He can still smell her in each notebook and feel her when he grips one of her pens. He cannot throw this stuff away, not now.
    So, every day he stands in the doorway looking at her mess and thinking about her.