Maybe it’s because Mom was insanely proud of this find, this Woody doll. Woody was the last Christmas gift she was able to give him and maybe it’s because I know she knew that deep in her heart that I will always cherish it and tear up when I see it lying around the house.
When you lose someone that lived in every crevice of your soul, every day is a battleground of memories inside your head. You never quite know what might set the battle off. Whether it be a TV show they used to watch that comes on or when you pull a pan out of the cabinet they bought for you to cook supper with. Today Marshall and I cleaned out his winter clothes and prepped them for storage. With every garment I pulled out from his drawers was something Mom had purchased for him either at Sam’s or TJ Maxx or St. Vincent DePaul (her most favorite store in the world).
As I folded each garment and placed them in a storage container I knew that I was giving up a part of her physical love for him. The small things she lived her life for. She would go shopping, call me on her way home to tell me all about the things she had found for him, and then with great joy she would present the items to me, Marshall, Jess, and Jensen one by one with such enthusiasm. She genuinely loved her family so much and she loved providing for us in every way she could. As I sat in the middle of his room, clinching silly things as t-shirts to my face, my heart and eyes flooded with sadness. I realized today that Marshall was one step closer to having no items from his Mamaw Debbie in his closet. One step closer to growing up without her. Without her presence, guidance, love, jokes, food, gifts, but most of all her influence on his life. Life is cruel like that and bittersweet at the same time. Time just keeps moving on no matter what happens and sometimes that’s more than we can grasp yet at the same time it saves us from falling to the depths of despair.
So now I’m just sitting here, silently dreading the day that I have to put Woody away. The day that will inevitably come sooner than I could ever imagine.
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