Why do we cling to certain objects that belonged to lost loved ones? When I wrote a recent Washington Post piece on this subject—in my case, involving my father’s golf shoes—I asked friends on Facebook to post their own stories of objects and loss. The responses were so beautiful that I’m sharing them here. —Ken Budd
Jill (left) and Susan.
The Emails
I met Susan on a flight from Los Angeles to Paris in July of 2008. I was headed to a one-month writing workshop in Paris. She was a New Yorker who lived in Paris for years. We had lunch a few times during the month, and over the years we saw each other five times in Paris and once in L.A. Due to the distance, we were email friends, mostly. I called her sometimes, though she felt I was wasting my money. Her opinion mattered somehow. I thought of her like a great aunt and I loved her dearly.
She and I wrote often. If I was thinking of her in the evening, I would wake up, and an email would be waiting. This happened several times over ten years. It was uncanny.
Susan died last November. I still cannot look at our email correspondence over the last ten years. If I start opening them, I know I’ll fall apart. Yet I cling to the fact that they’re there.
I actually wrote her after I knew she was gone. I know she received the message.
Jill Paris
Founder, Eclectic Tours of Charleston
Charleston, SC
Brenda (right) and her mom.
The Dresses
My mother worked in retail for years. She sold women’s clothing and had some nice outfits, but she’s been retired for decades, and over the past ten years or so has slipped into advanced dementia. She is now tiny and frail, weighing maybe ninety pounds. Her clothes are not only too large, but they’re out of style, with large collars and towering shoulder pads.
My mother rarely leaves the house, but my dad kept the clothes, which filled a closet in a spare bedroom. By holding on to the clothes, he was holding on to hope that she would miraculously get better, and he would see her wear them once again.
I’m the one in the family who weeds out of possessions: They don’t hold as much sentimental value to me. I told my dad that if my mom could pick out her own clothes, she would not wear the ones in her closet. She was too proud of her appearance to wear clothes that had long-since gone out of style. He kept two favorite outfits, but agreed—if Mom gets better, she can shop for new clothes.
Brenda Lucas
Bradenton, Florida
Jennifer and her father on her wedding day in 1994.
The Handkerchief
My dad was from the bygone era of men who carried cloth handkerchiefs. White linen embroidered with crisscrossed patterns. He was always ready when you had a cold, or needed to wipe away tears, or dry your brow in the heat. I recall many times playing with his handkerchief—making a mask or flittering it around like a bird on the wing. Dad died at 57. It was traumatic for me at 23 to lose my father, and I try hard to keep his memory alive by sharing stories with my kids. He was full of life, full of love, and an extremely generous person. I keep the handkerchief in my top dresser drawer, and I take it out on days when I want to be near him again. It still carries his scent (or maybe I’m imagining it) and the cloth is soft on my cheek—just like when I was a child and needed to be comforted.
Jennifer L. Disano
Executive Director, Osher Lifelong Learning Institute, George Mason University
Fairfax, VA
Buffy has held up pretty well over the years.
The Stuffed Bear
My boyfriend and I are in moving into our new house, and after already culling through 47 years of stuff for another move six months previous, now I have to do it again—and be an example for his three young girls, who have ridiculous amounts of toys.
And yet one of my toys remains.
Buffy is a three-foot-tall stuffed bear my dad gave me when I was about four. He was on a trip to Milwaukee as a Memphis homicide detective. We picked daddy up from the airport and went to dinner in downtown Memphis. I insisted the bear get his own chair and order his own food. My mom wasn’t keen on that, but MY dad let me do it.
Buffy looks like one of those bears you would win at a country fair carnival game. He’s hard, not squishy, and his pink tongue came off long ago. It was probably an afterthought toy you grab your kid at the airport after you’ve been interrogating a murderer all day. Behind his ears, that crease of stuffing still smells like my old room, sweet, powdery, like little girls. I don’t know how that happened—I guess air and dust can’t enter the crease. So at least once a month, I sniff behind his ears.
I can't get rid of him. My dad died when I was 12, so that's probably part of it. My mom sold or gave away most of his things pretty quickly, and I never had a chance to claim much. So I've hung on to that bear through childhood, college, apartments, and now my fourth or fifth house. I mostly keep him in closets, sitting him upright as if he needs oxygen. I apologize to him when I get towels off his shelf but leave him behind.
Buffy will be coming with us to our new home. Don’t tell the girls.
Laura Boswell
Loan officer, Century Mortgage Co.
Bowling Green, Kentucky
Yehuda’s partner, Arthur.
The bells
My mother, Rose, died in 2000 of ovarian cancer. When cleaning out her apartment, I found a small bottle of Chanel #5. It is mostly evaporated and the scent is minimal. I cannot throw it out. I also have a birthday card she sent me. I don’t recall how old I was. I was in my twenties, probably. The card simply said, “I’ve always loved you, even before you were born.”
My partner, Arthur, followed the Taoist tradition—a form of Chinese philosophy which functioned as a counterpart to Confucianism. After he died of a sudden heart attack in 1987 at 48, I managed to clean out most of his belongings with the exception of two items. The first was a pair of foo dogs: Chinese guardian lions found at temple entrances. The other one was a pair of Tibetan prayer bells. I ring the bells from time to time and when I hear the sounds, it brings me closer to him.
Yehuda Jacobi
Author, Beyond the Opened Door
Glenview, Illinois
Peter’s father.
The Cigarette Lighter
A treasured keepsake of my late father is a small metal cigarette lighter engraved with the outline of a golfer completing a long-distance shot. It no longer functions, but that’s hardly the point. I seldom hold it but I know it’s always there, a bittersweet memory of my connection to a past life, and a reminder of who I am now, and a pointer to what I am to be.
Peter Taylor
Oliva, Spain
Prim’s dad and his eyeglasses.
The Eyeglasses
I still have my father’s everyday eyeglasses since he passed away in 1996. My father taught me how to read and love books and newspapers. As a kid, I thought his eyeglasses were responsible for making him smart, well-informed, and eloquent. When he died, I asked my mom for his eyeglasses, which I carefully placed on a table in our family home alongside his favorite cigar. During family and special occasions, I religiously place his favorite soda and beer on the same table just to feel that he’s with us.
Prim Paypon
The Dream Project
The Philippines
The Tweed Cap
My father played tennis the morning that he died. That evening, sitting in his favorite chair, wearing his tennis hat, and watching the evening news, he died of a heart attack. My stepmother came home from the hairdresser and found him in a relaxed position. He was 74. He died in November 1979. I have my father’s herringbone tweed cap and a tweed muffler that he wore. The DNA is there, the wear and tear, even the smell. To lose those objects is to lose the connection, never to be regained.
Meredith Dunham-Wilmot
Washington, D.C.
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