Just a note

All you out there who aren't widows or widowers, take note.  It's all in a note.

I opened up Adam's closet last night and stood back to look at the contents.  It's really such a good and bad thing to see all of his stuff.  I'm still not sure when I'll be ready to go through it all.  But thankfully that's up to me.

I was wondering if there's really anything in there that smells like him still.  I guess I was quick to sort and do the laundry after he died that I didn't stop and think that maybe I should save something, anything, that still smelled like him.  Guess his deoderant will have to do. 

As I stared at his clothes all hung up, I realized the one thing in his closet that wouldn't be "clean" per se--his suit coat and pants.  Funny enough (or sadly enough), I think all the clean smelling clothes smell from everything else in the closet has rubbed off on his suit because it just smells like everything else in there.

And I got to thinking a thought that has crossed my mind a million times:  Wouldn't it be nice to just magically come across a note he'd written to me, one that he'd secretly written and never given to me, one that was just waiting for me to read.  Even though I realize this is NOT likely to ever happen, it still is a nice thought.  So then it hit me--check his suit pockets.  I checked them all, and in his suit was one rolled up tiny piece of paper from a church lesson with some scripture references on it.  Not a note from him, and not in his writing, but still a note.  It made me smile as I tried to figure out what the course of study would've been for that particular day.

When his 3rd white coat was found by his coworkers about a month ago, I went down to pick it up at the hospital.  Thankfully, the coworker who had his coat hadn't touched it, hadn't gone through his pockets at all--she left it hanging on a hanger in her office.  As I realized that there could be HIPAA info in the pockets (and as I nurse I understand the importance of this health information privacy stuff), I went through the pockets with this coworker.  It was funny how delighted I was to see his chicken scratch.  To read and understand his shorthand notes and medical jargon.  "Bili tube insert" "AST, ALT" pager numbers for other on-call residents and other phrases written about the scratch papers...with yes, some pt info.  So I gave them to the coworker to shred.  Also in this filthy-dirty coat pocket were his earphones (on which I noted one of his hairs.  Weird how strangly comforting this was.) and some chapstick.  Of. Course!!!  Adam never went ANYWHERE without his chapstick.  Nowhere.  Every night it sat on his nightstand.  Every morning it was with him on the bathroom counter for after he showered.  Every morning he would kiss me goodbye after having chapsticked his lips.  Some mornings I would wake to tasting his chapstick from his kiss from the night before.  Interestingly (to me anyway), they found his wallet days after the crash, up crushed in the dash.  But I know where he put his wallet when he drove his car each time, in the cupholder with his chapstick, beneath the stereo console.  I truly expected to have the police give me his wallet back along with some chapstick.

So.  Lesson for today:  If you aren't widowed.  And even if you ARE.  Write a note to your family members.  Write notes to your children that they are to receive when they go on their first dates, for when they go on to serve as missionaries, for when they get married, for when they have their first babies.  AND.  To your spouse.  Write and tell him or her what you'd want him or her to know if you were suddenly gone.  Know that if lightning happens to strike in your family as it did mine--these letters are priceless.  I'm going to write letters to my boys and keep them by my will--you know, just in case.  I hate that we don't know what tomorrow will bring.  So very frustrating.  But at least my boys will have some notes from me.  And maybe some chapstick scotch-taped to the envelopes.