I thought I could.

We were sorting things in the house.

Every time we come down to work on the house to make it more livable, we clear out more stuff.

The trash pickup is tomorrow, Friday, and the bins aren’t full. There’s room for more.

Chaz and Kristina are doing fetch and carry, and clearing the obvious.

My job is upstairs in the green room. I sort recyclables, trash, keepers, and maybes to look at later.

It’s a slow process.

I have a long life and there’s a lot of stuff.

Shirley and I, I admit it, were hoarders, pack rats. I collected books and records for the store we always wanted. Shirley collected everything else, which is everything.

I don’t even want to think about the dumpsters we rented, one after another after another, to clear away.

It breaks my heart to clear out my life.

We are making headway. Now some rooms we can walk through, sit down in, eat food, watch television. It’s getting better and better. I have my chair in the living room, and in my “study” I can sleep on my little bed in the corner.

But it seems that while we’re gone, the stuff in the house gets together and breeds, and when we come back we have to root through it to find where we left off and made a dent.

It’s especially hard on me because, with Shirley gone, it’s not just clearing away my own life, it’s hers too going to the trash bin and each thing I pick up, “Do I really need this?” is throwing away the life we didn’t get to lead.

I talk to her in the air as I turn over each little piece of anything, everything she touched, every note she wrote, everywhere her DNA might be collected.

“Remember when you wrote me this card? It wasn’t for any birthday or Christmas or special day, you were just thinking of me and wanted to let me know.”

“Remember when I tried so hard to be better and we kissed forever? When I found you things for all your collections, the little pigs, the elephants, the alligators, the frogs, the everything there ever was because you loved everything. We were going to put it in our store and be so happy getting things to people who wanted them. We always wanted a happier world and spent our whole lives working toward it.”

Now, especially after the Altadena fires when so many people lost everything and now they need even any little bit of any something, all the things I might have thrown away, I now look at more closely. All the clothes that still could be worn, and shoes, oh the shoes, Shirley loved shoes and had so many. It’s her legacy to the world, and I owe it to her, to both of us, I respect that legacy, to preserve it. Now that the Thrift Store is open again, and they need to restock, Shirley can give through me.

So I am sitting upstairs in the green room on my little folding chair, sorting recyclables from trash, setting aside so many things to keep or re-sort later, and I broke down and started crying so loud I couldn’t stop.

There, hanging in the closet, was the golden dress she wore in our Renaissance Consort, right next to my tunic, together and touching each other, and I cried and screamed and cried.

Kristina came in from working outside, heard me, rushed upstairs, “Dad! Are you alright? Did you fall? Are you in pain?”

“I’m alright,” I sobbed.

She tried to calm her heart it was beating so fast, she brought me water with ice.

“Take a break,” she said. “Let it go for now. I’m so sorry I left you alone up here.”

I tried to make a joke to let her know I’d be ok. “Thanks for the ice in the water, but these days, you have to watch out for ICE.”

I knew it was a “Dad joke.”

She stroked my hair, stacked the bins, recyclables, trash, keepers. Chaz took the to-go ones out to the trash bins at the curb, ready for tomorrow’s pick up.

I came downstairs to drink my water and write this down.

I distracted myself by imagining posters for a reading of my book I ought to schedule at the Library:

“Live! In person! World Class Author being read in 61 countries around the globe, his latest book now available, he’ll read passages so you’ll know you want it, check cash or money order, he’ll sign it in person, just tell him your name and what you want him to say.”

But seriously, folks, dear readers, I need to apologize to you for inflicting my pain on you.

I just couldn’t stop crying.