Sunday Confessions:

First and foremost:  The person who loved me the most was my grandmother.  I lived with her off and on until she died in 08.  I found myself deeply [DEEPLY] depressed for about 6 months [of course], and I clung irrationally to her things.  Everything we parted with felt like we were pushing her from right on the other side of this life to further and further away, like we were throwing away pieces of a broken vessel that would never again be whole, but still had most of its bits.  After a bit of non-soul searching [a camping trip with my then-boyfriend in the wilderness with tons of food, pot, and alcohol that resulted in a vivid dream in which my grandma told me, "I still love you, even though I am not here," and quoted Do You Realize??? by the Flaming Lips], I was able to not see her death as the single most defining tragedy in my life, and living my own life without archiving every fragment of hers.  However, there are still things that I can't give away:  two blouses she wore often and her glasses are still in my home, packed away.  I've never stumbled across the clothing of any dead relatives in the homes of my friends and family, but I don't know how to not keep them.  To get rid of them would make me unhappy, so to me they are worth keeping.