erasing a life

I think one of the hardest parts about all this widowhood stuff is doing things I never would have to do if Mr. T were still alive.

Like, one of the first things I had to do was take care of his LinkedIn account. Normally I wouldn't have to do anything with that but he had a premium account which meant we were paying $69 a month for it. His company was reimbursing him for that but once he was gone, the reimbursements stopped and I certainly could no longer afford it so I had to contact LinkedIn. They ended up fixing the problem by deleting his entire LinkedIn account which wasn't what I wanted (I kind of liked looking at it) and something inside me screamed when I realized what they'd done but, I had to tell myself it wasn't hurting him, he really no longer needed it. But I HATE the fact that it (and he) no longer exists on LinkedIn.

And that realization just about tore me up inside.

There's all the big things you have to do - remove his name from financial accounts, from joint property in case you need to sell, even something as silly as Disney passes so you don't have to keep paying for the pass that will never be used again.

Then there are the silly, little things that no one ever thinks about. Somehow I think these are the worst.

Such as, I've promised myself that this is the weekend I'll clean out the refrigerator and freezer of all the foods that haven't been touched since November since they were ones that only he liked. But I hate even the idea of that because it means he's really never coming back. Of course my head knows this but my heart is being quite stubborn.

Or here is a silly one. See that broken bread tie up there? Mr. T put that on the cord of our toaster because the toaster and toaster oven sit next to each other and we were forever plugging in the wrong one. So he put a bread tie on the toaster cord so that we could easily identify it. It broke a few weeks ago and I actually cried . 

I put another bread tie on the cord so his idea lives on but the one he actually put on himself is gone...well, not completely gone, I can't bring myself to throw it out and hellfire will rain down on the head of anybody who accidentally does it while they are visiting me. 

I know there are much bigger "erasings" coming up. I haven't moved his shoes from the front hall and all of his clothes are still in the closet (and scattered on his side of the bedroom as he left them) and eventually I will need to go through all of them and give some away and box the rest up. I won't be able to bring myself to throw any of them away. But I just can't face that right now because that would be the ultimate erasure. To face that empty closet every day would just kill me. It would mean that he's really gone, that he doesn't need any of those clothes any more because he's not coming back.

I know he's not coming back but I don't *know* it, know what I mean? I don't want to know it.

How can someone be here every day for 55 years and then - poof - it's like they never existed? It just isn't fair.

I hate all of this but I hate creating a life without him in it the most.