Ohhh you convey the weight of sorrow, the immediacy of it even a year later (half a century later, their clothing can bring back that same immediacy) - how I feel it with you!!!
This, I know, and know too well:
His clothing gets to me, you know? Yet, I keep some of it, so that it can get to me. In so doing, he comes back alive for a breath or two, or a beat in time.
My dad's shirts and caps ... the smell of engines and diesel fuel and pipe smoke still lingers in some, undefeated by laundry detergent and line drying in the sun.
I doubt there is anyone who understands this poem better than you do, Carol. Three close deaths in less than a year for you, no? Or not much longer than one year. And Julie, so long ago. Has it been fifty years?
There are a couple things I can't bring myself to wash at all. You know why.