I haven’t written about this lately, but forward I go, slices of missing smacking me soundly at random times. Certainly every time I try to go through the remaining boxes or deal with the remaining things I have to deal with, some of them private.

I’ve been through a number of boxes, finished some difficult tasks, had some hard conversations, made decisions that hurt. I also have very nice and funny memories float in from time to time, and our mutual friends that it’s nice to share these with.

I have a list of things I should try to do regarding this.
Here are a few to work on:

• Sort through remaining boxes here and in storage
• Sort through music, books and movies
• Pick up copies of hard drives
• Pick up artwork
• Drop off or mail specific things to people who want them
• Give away unused journals to people who’ll use them
• Sort loose photographs
• Take in disposable cameras
• Copy phone messages
• Visit Lucky

I’ve been thinking about making up a special label and using bookcrossing to share some of his books, so I suppose I’ll design something. Some I’d like to read first, but I think this is a good way to go about letting them go – he loved sharing his books, and in this way he still can.

Last week I washed the few vintage shirts of his that I kept. It was hard – the smell of menthol cigarettes, cologne, hair pomade and whatever else made up his specific smell. It would cling to you for hours after one of his parting hugs. I half expected to turn around and see him standing there and it brought on some serious tears. There’s a trace of it in the books now; the cigarettes mostly, but that vivid personal scent of his has been replaced with vanilla fabric softener.