Life imitating art

A friend posted yesterday she was selling her late husband’s car and that opened a chasm of emotions for her and her kids. It’s so hard to let go of the things that connect us to our loved ones. I reached out to her, reminding her to be gentle with herself and to hang on to whatever she wanted to, that there is no timeline to getting rid of her husband’s belongings. Unfortunately, sometimes life requires you to do so. And as I have mentioned in previous blog posts, doing so feels like you are erasing them somehow.

My Joe was a huge car enthusiast. I was most certainly “the other woman” in his life when he still owned his 1968 Mustang. He owned it longer than we were together. He loved all things cars and even worked as a mechanic for over fifteen years. He had actually been at a charity car show earlier in the day before his cardiac arrest last year.

Last night I turned on the tv to watch “Modern Love” on Amazon Prime. Inspired by the New York Times popular column, the show brings to life different stories of love and human connection. In this episode, Minnie Driver plays a widow who is remarried and wrestling with the idea of getting rid of her late husband’s car.

Yes, you read that right.

As I watched the episode, I cried through most of it because she does all the things I still do like talk to him when no one else is around and rationalize every move she makes to “keep his memory alive” (perhaps sometimes in lieu of moving forward). I was floored at the irony of it all. Yet another sign from beyond the grave? Perhaps. But Minnie’s character wasn’t really struggling with what to do with the car.

None of it was about the car, or the sweater in the back of the closet, or Joe’s jacket STILL hanging in the garage.

It’s about the love.

“It’s love and grief, and there are no rules.”