The Quest for Comfort
Sifting through the wife’s belongings was a way of holding on, clinging to what one had. It was a struggle to hang on to that feeling that no longer was as substantial as it used to be; the wife, he felt, was gone, and these remnants were his means to feel the closeness she had denied him in life. In the first few days or weeks of grief, part of you feels you’re missing something, and when you get the belongings she left behind, going through them is a way of reconnecting with her, if only in spirit.
There were things among everything in her closet that seemed so familiar – like the sweater she had worn the day they had met or the photograph they’d taken on their first date. These things comforted him but made him question her life before their meeting: what type of young woman was she? What were her dreams? How did she look at life before they met?
Then, he started showing curiosity about other personal things that had been kept from him. He discovered journals, handwritten letters, and old photographs with which he was not familiar. There were pictures of her with friends, family, and ex-lovers—just snapshots of her life before the wedding. In them, he seemed to feel a bittersweet wonder at how much he hadn’t shared.
