When someone dies, their residue – their presence – imprints upon the objects they once kept. A broken pen; a Christmas decoration; a jacket; a suitcase; a TV guide with shows of interest underlined. Previously ordinary things become possessed with the lost magic of their owner’s aliveness, if only in infinitesimal fragments. It is therefore difficult to throw them away. And yet this is what must be done.
My father, when he died two years ago, left behind an inaccessible office, the doorway blocked by magazines and documents, obstructing the path to a desk hidden under piles of boxes, books, photo albums and stationery. Towards the room’s walls, things were increasingly orderless. Stacks folded into one another, forming shapeless masses of paper and plastic, the floor completely concealed. It was the work of decades, and I do not doubt that if my mother had not been fervently committed to preserving the tidiness of every other room, much of their house would have looked like this.
