Part of my grief process has been a continued sense of detachment from life, including relationships, activities, and objects. At times, I’ve been overwhelmed with a sense of claustrophobia at being surrounding with so much stuff, most of which is pretty much meaningless to me now. While things can be beautiful, they often just don’t touch me in any deep or meaningful way and have become little more than dust-collectors in my estimation. Thus, I’ve felt an internal pressure to divest myself of the clutter surrounding me that takes up high-value space in my emotional atmosphere and causes me unease.

On Wednesday after work, I came home and without thought of what I was taking on began my de-cluttering efforts en force (I had already taken a first step this weekend with the office, which houses some high-emotion objects). Before realizing what I was starting, I cleaned out (OK, no cleansers or wet rags involved, I confess) my over-crowded and maddening triple-shelf spice cupboard and a very deep cupboard above my oven that stores sugar, flours, oils, and other cooking ingredients. Being on a farm, we deal with a moth-infestation every year. Happy are the fowl when they receive full bags of crackers, chips, cereals, and other delicacies filled with high-protein creepy-crawlies! Fortunately, I’ve learned over the years, and although I did find a moth flying around the cupboard, all of my food stuffs were contained uninfested in airtight, insect-proof containers. I left the kitchen amazed that I had accomplished tasks that brought me such relief without causing any real suffering.

I headed to the den to relax and read my book but as I walked to the couch was distracted by the book shelf. This is one of those “build-it-yourself,” six-by-nine foot pine wood shelves from Home Depot with a total of 11 shelves, most of which housed two rows of books. Did I mention I’ve always loved reading, have an MA in English, and taught college English? So I have BOOKS. I had already set the goal of sorting through these treasures and getting rid of any that I didn’t feel a compulsion to keep and in fact had asked my husband to bring me boxes from his work to pack up the giveaways. Drink and book in hand, I stared at the shelves and thought, “I’ll just go through one shelf to ease into the process.” Three hours and four crammed boxes of books later, I was covered in a thick layer of gray dust, and my shelves were virtually breathing with the freedom of release. Talk about a feeling of accomplishment! I can’t recommend it highly enough.

Nonetheless, this is not a decluttering blog. This is my story or shall I say stories? While looking at each and every book and deciding between the “keep-it” or “lose-it” pile, I dealt with all the emotional triggers remembering will bring…and some triggers came from things I hadn’t known were there. Photos of our dog Lily who died in spring 2013, just a puppy when we moved to the farm in 2001, with our original “Moose-the-mini-Dachshund,” a puppy herself.  Snapshots of Sarah and her date before her Junior Prom. A book about a Mexican volcano my ex-husband Pablo’s ex-girlfriend had given him one year for his birthday. And a mostly unused journal.

I set aside the photos to share with my family and decided to give away Pablo’s book since my ex-husband is no longer living, and I couldn’t think of anyone else who would want the book inscribed by his girlfriend. I didn’t look at the journal until I had sorted through the books. Then I picked it up and opened it to the first and only page with writing. It read:

“Dear Mom,
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‘Heart,’ (in a symbol for love)
Jessica Kelly 12-27-2000”

My child was just 12 1/2 when she wrote this. She couldn’t know the future (could she?), but maybe she saw her sister, who was 14 at the time, exhibiting those lovely teenage outrages toward her parents. Jess told me when she was older (in her early 20s) that before puberty she had thought “she could never be mean to her mommy,” but then, of course, she became a teenager, and the hormones reared their ugly horns, and next thing she knew she was outdoing her sister in pushing Mom away. But how in the world, why in the world, did she write these exact words that I wouldn’t find until a year and a half after her leaving me?  In the space of a handwritten page, she managed to assure me that she would always love and like me, that I wouldn’t be to blame for her adult choices, and that she would always carry me in her heart. I am left with tears, heartbreak, gratitude, questions, and amazement at the wisdom and foresight of my little Jessie Bear.

If you’ve read my previous post “My Spiritual Journey,” you’ll know that I’ve put aside all of my lifetime spiritual beliefs including that we are eternal, that we exist here and on the eternal plain at the same time, that I have the ability to communicate and experience my daughter even though she has passed from this life. I want to believe in all these things, but since I realized that believing she was just a breath away from me and all I had to do was finely attune myself to experience her seemed to bring me such pain, I decided that without real proof I wouldn’t allow myself to dwell in the world of “make-believe” any more. So what should I think of this message that came out of nowhere, that so spoke to my heart’s need, that ironically appeared the Wednesday before Mother’s Day? I just don’t know. Before, I would have known that this was Jessie reaching out to me now, not 15 years ago. But for the present I will sit with the gift of her precious words and take them for what they meant when she wrote them and what they mean to me now that I’ve read them.

This morning I came across a quote that I know she would love:

“If there ever comes a day we can’t be together, keep me in your heart, I’ll stay there forever.  Winnie the Pooh”

You will always be in my heart too, Little Bear.