Matt was a big Eminem fan. An appropriate title for my life this week. He could rap with the best of them. A ‘Rap God,’ if you will. He knew every word to almost every rap song. Actually, he knew every word to most songs from rap across the board to country music. My favorite to hear him sing was Ludacrus, Phat Rabbit. I remember us bumping around in the Caprese when we first started dating and I was in awe of him and this song. Though the second he saw me look at him, he’d stop. I’d look out the window and listen as close as I could, pretending that I wasn’t hanging on every lyric. He was amazing in so many ways, but his rapping always got me. I loved it.
In the book I’m reading, it’s talking about cleaning out the clutter in your mental closet. How once you do, it allows room for new energy- whatever you or the universe decides that to be. Healing. Growth. Positivity. How if you’re stuck in old patterns or thoughts, there simply is no room to replace with new. How serendipitous to be in that place in this book as this week I cleaned out Matt’s closet.
Matt would find about three shirts and wear them until they were see-through with holes in them. Yet somehow his wardrobe had more clothing than any woman’s closet I’ve ever seen. I discovered his black Structure button down collared shirt- the one he wore to our Winter Formal when we were 16 and we had the honor of being Junior class attendants. His Da Socca Playas T-shirt that had the sleeves cut off because… well if you know, you know. The Sweet Corn Challenge volunteer shirts he wore obsessively for years. The navy blue, solar cotton pajama pants he made in our 8th grade home economics class. The list goes on and the memories came flooding in. I found love letters that I’d written him. Anniversary cards. Notes from the boys. The key cards and handwritten letter from our Ritz Carlton stay. I thought I lost it- he kept it, validating that it likely meant more to him than it did to me. It was heartwarming to see the things he held onto.
I went through his nightstand yesterday. He had every single lanyard with his SoBe entry pass on it from his annual work trip to South Florida. I found a tooth- not joking and I’m not at all sure whose it was 😂. When everything was cleaned out, I opened the top drawer to find one card left behind. A card I’m absolutely sure I didn’t leave in there. It was from our 7 year wedding anniversary. I had written about the gratitude I felt for the life we’d created together. How I wouldn’t want to live this life with anyone but him. And signed at the bottom, ‘Never Ever Never. H. Lynn’. He called me Lynn at times throughout the years. I always loved that. It was so personal and so loving.
When we started dating and had those new relationship butterflies and were completely obsessed with each other and our budding love, we would always say, ‘I love you always and forever, and never ever never.’ On the inside of our wedding bands, we both had engraved, ‘Never Ever Never.’ The funeral home gifted me a pendant with his finger print on it… the obvious choice was to have ‘Never Ever Never’ engraved on the back.. for I will love him always and forever, and never ever never.
It’s been a tough week, to put it lightly. Seeing my best friend, husband, and soulmates’ life being carried out in garbage bags was heart wrenching. Empty drawers, empty hangers, empty space… it’s making me cry as I write. A very kind and sweet woman in our community is making quilts out of Matt’s Tshirts for the boys. It will be nice one day to explain to our sons the memory attached to each little square on their respective blankets.
My hope is that creating space in our actual closet will help me grow into the next step of healing and acceptance in my mental closet. We weren’t ‘things’ people- so for me, seeing his things untouched and unmoved every day was worse than seeing the empty space left behind. It was also beautiful to see the ‘things’ that did matter to him. Most of which were a memory or attachment to me. What an absolute honor.
Never Ever Never, my sweet, sweet man.
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