Keeping Memories Close: The Things Widows Keep After Loss

As part of our experiences as widows navigating life after loss, we talk about the cherished items we held onto that once belonged to our late husbands.

We share our personal stories, witness the profound significance these objects hold, and uncover the emotional connections they provide.

From preserving old cell phones filled with treasured text messages to rehoming sentimental shirts and leaving a trail of shoes across the globe, each of us showcases the power of mementos in honoring the past while embracing a hopeful future.

Remember, there’s no right or wrong way to do this. 

There are no rules so take the time you need to do what feels best for you.

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Episode Transcript

Melissa: Welcome back to the Widow Squad, podcast. I’m Melissa Pierce, here with my cohosts Jen Zwinck and Kim Murray.

So this week, we thought we’d talk about things that you have kept of your late husband’s.

Let’s start with Kim.

What are some things that you still have around that mean something to you? 

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Kim: First of all, I kept my husband’s cell phone for a very long time, butI did get rid of it.

I hate saying that term, “get rid of.” I like to use the term “rehomed” when I say I’m getting rid of things. I didn’t get rid of it. I rehomed it.

But I kept the cell phone for a very long time. Eight years to be exact because we had text messages on it. And I would read those text messages over and over again. The same string of messages because I would see dates on it. Now, I remember that day when we took the boys to the ski place, and so and so fell on the ski hill, whatever. We just had texts back and forth.

So every once in a while, I would get those out. And I cried a lot, obviously, after he died. But sometimes when you get to the point where you can’t cry anymore, you sometimes want to still cry to get that release out. I’d have to read these text messages when I would want to force myself to cry, if that makes sense. I had to release some things, and sometimes I wasn’t releasing enough, so I’d read the text messages. And this was an old phone, too. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. It’s like, I can’t believe we used to use these phones, considering what we have now. It’s kind of funny when you look back on it.

But I kept the cell phone for a long time. And then when I decided to move out of the house that we shared, I thought it was time to let that cell phone go, so I did. 

So, Mark had terminal brain cancer, and he was being treated at the University of Michigan Hospital system. He was a big University of Michigan fan. So when he had his surgery, they took out most of the tumor, but obviously they didn’t get all of it. That’s why it’s terminal. You can’t clear every cell, cancer cell, it comes back.

After he had the surgery, he got himself a University of Michigan shirt. And then he had the words Glioblastoma Survivor embroidered on the shirt. He had that embroidered on the shirt because he made it out of the surgery. And he was still alive. So he wore that. He was very proud of it. He wore it often.

Well, he didn’t survive the cancer, but I kept that shirt because it just meant a lot to him. And it was in the back of my closet for a really long time. I took most of his clothes and I donated them to the Vietnam Veterans of America. And there were a few shirts that I kept, and that was one of them because it’s just a reminder of a really bad time in our life. But just the fact that he was so proud of how he got through the surgery and how he handled everything in that last year I just couldn’t couldn’t part with it.

So that’s one of the things I kept.

Melissa:  Where is it now? Is it in your closet? 

Kim: I don’t wear it. There’s a couple of shirts I kept, but I donated a lot of them. Just a few shirts that were just him. They were just Mark Murray. And I just kept him in the back of the closet. I just keep it back there. And every once in a while I’ll pull it out.

And again, if there’s been some time I haven’t shed some tears and I need a forced release, I will bring out the shirt and take a look at it. But that’s probably the most significant thing that I kept.

What about you, Melissa?

What did you keep?

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Melissa:  Well, Dave was a rock collector. A love that I did not share with him.

Kim: Rocks. Interesting. Okay.

Jen: What’s the name of that? Isn’t there, like, an actual name for those?

Melissa: I don’t know. Rock Hound?

Jen: No, it’s on the tip of my tongue, but go ahead. 

Melissa: Yeah, it was like a meditative practice, I think, for him to search for rocks. We live in Oregon, so there’s a lot of Native American artifacts. You can just find arrowheads in particular fields in the eastern part of the state. And so he would just, I don’t know, we’d just be driving along and he would stop on the side of the road. I’m like, “what are we doing?” He’d say “oh, I’m going to go look for some arrowhead” We had two or three big five gallon buckets just full of rocks. Rocks, rocks, rocks. Some are really pretty. Some were just, I don’t know, rocks.

So, they were in the garage, as I mentioned in a previous episode. My boys and I moved from our home very shortly after Dave died. And then we had to move again shortly thereafter. So I’m continually taking these buckets of rocks and moving them to all these places.

I went through some of them and I did keep a few that I kind of remember him telling me were special rocks. I knew some of the stories behind the rocks. I kept a few, and then I’m like, well, I don’t want to carry these rocks around anymore. What should I do with them? I didn’t want to just dump them on the side of the road.

They were special to him and I didn’t want to just throw them away or get rid of them.

Kim: You rehomed them.

Melissa: I rehomed them back to the earth.

Our house was on the market, but it was empty. It was a house on six acres in the woods, tons of trees, very forested. And I took the buckets of these rocks back up to the house with our kids, and I said, “hey guys, we’re going to have a game. We’re going to throw the rocks”.

We just threw them. We tried to hit trees. We tried to hit other big rocks. We’re just on the porch of this empty house with a for sale sign on it. And me and our two kids, we just threw the rocks back to the earth where they needed to be. But I did keep a few of those.

Dave was a football coach. He was a junior high and high school football coach. And the coaches had jackets with their names embroidered on them. And that was very much a part of his identity, he was a teacher and football coach. So I have that jacket. It’s just in the closet. Nobody’s allowed to wear it. I don’t wear it. I’ve asked the boys if they want it. They don’t want it now, but maybe they do later. But that’s what I have kept.

And then I also kept this other jacket. It’s your standard Columbia sportswear jacket. And I had it in the coat closet, way in the back. And somebody in our family had put it on and borrowed it. I’m not going to mention who, if somebody’s listening to this. And I came unglued. It was such a weird reaction because I’m like, “where’s the jacket!?”

And even when I see people on the street wearing it, because it’s a common jacket, I do a double take. I ended up just donating that jacket.

But I do have his football jacket with his name embroidered on the side. Yeah. It’s kind of funny what we attribute or what the importance we put on things. 

How about you, Jen?

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Jen: My list goes on and on. I kept so many things. I still do have stuff. I do. And I’ve moved several times. Things have been in storage units. And then I just keep bringing them with me. And I don’t know the reason, but I just keep them.

There were a lot of things that I did get rid of when we moved and I sold the house. But as far as the things that he would wear, I kept all of the sweatshirts. And even undershirts I did finally get rid of or donated, also his pants and shorts. I kept his socks. So weird! My friend came over one day. She was trying to help me clean things out when I was selling my house. She started boxing up all of the socks. And I was like, “no, we can’t get rid of that!” I mean, I went crazy. I was like, “don’t touch it.” I will do it. I reacted in a weird way about socks. White socks. I mean, nothing special.

Kim: Socks you get at the grocery store. 

Jen: I don’t even know. I am thankful that I did keep the sweatshirts because my daughter wears them now. They’re huge on her, right? She just loves to wear those.

I actually found recently there was a box of things, and it was some of his work things, like his little pin that said Dr. Brent on his work coat.  Some of his optometry things and optometry equipment.

But also in there was this big pack. It was like a box of baseball cards from when he was little. And I totally forgot that he had that. I forgot that it was in this other box. It’s like a box inside of a box. Not that I meant to keep it, but I’m so glad that I did. He’s got some in there that are individually in little plastic containers. I know that they are really super special.  Maybe worth something, I don’t know. But this was his childhood, so I was really excited that I still have that. 

I didn’t realize that he had so many shoes. This man had like 50 pairs of shoes. I don’t even know how many pairs of shoes. It was insane because he would keep them in the garage and then he would keep them in his closet and they were everywhere around the house.

So when I had to go through his shoes, I thought what am I going to do with all these shoes? I can donate them, I can give them to other people, I can do all that stuff.

But my daughter and I were going on a trip and I decided that I was going to take his shoes with us and I was going to leave them wherever we went to these new destinations, places we had never been before. I had made this decision that everything that I had been through, it was not going to stop me from living a good life and seeing all of the places that we wanted to see together that he never did get a chance to see. I could still bring him with me to wherever we were going.

So the first time we went to Disney, I took his shoes and I left one over by the rollercoaster that my daughter had her first ride on, so I left his shoe there. I took a picture. And then the first time we went out to California and we were at Newport Beach, my daughter put her toes in the Pacific. That was the first time she had done that. So I took one of his shoes and I put it on a little rock and I took a picture of her by the beach with his shoes. And I said, “daddy is walking with us wherever we’re going all around the world.”

I kind of made it our thing. It was for my daughter and I and it just made the trips special that we went on together.  His shoes have been everywhere. When we went to Russia – he’s got a shoe in Russia. We went to Iceland and we went hiking inside of a glacier. His shoe is inside of a glacier in Iceland.  

Melissa: Do you leave the shoes there? 

Jen: Yeah, I do.  I leave a shoe wherever we go.

Melissa: Gosh, I wonder if something’s going viral now! Like all these shoes are showing up all over the world. That’s so cool. You’re leaving a piece of him in the places you’ve been to. 

Jen: It’s like he walked with us wherever we were and he was with us on that trip wherever we went.  So we still have a lot of places to cover. 

Kim: But it’s been fun, right?

Jen: It’s a fun kind of tribute to him. It’s a way to honor him and take us with us.

Kim: I love it.

Melissa: That’s beautiful. Again, there’s no rules again around what you keep, what you rehome, what you donate. It’s whatever feels right to you. If you want to keep his whole wardrobe of clothes, keep it. Who cares? And if it starts to feel like you don’t want to, then don’t.

Kim: Well, that’s it. You can decide. I mean, I kept a bunch of stuff for my kids. I didn’t keep it for me. I still have things in my basement for my kids because my husband was a big hunter and fisherman and all that stuff. He had a ton of coats and jackets and pants and hunting gear and fishing gear that’s all packed up and ready for the boys when they’re ready to take it. There’s a lot of things that are going to my children that I still have, not that I’ve kept for myself, but tons of stuff for the kids because I’m not going to decide what my kids take or don’t take.

I’ve saved it for them. When they’re adults, they can decide for themselves. If they don’t want it, then that’s fine. We will rehome it at that point. But I wasn’t about to decide prior to them reaching adulthood what they were going to want to keep and not keep. 

Melissa: There’s no rules. Whatever feels good to honor them. I love the shoe picture. That is so cool. Did the thought just kind of come to you?

Jen: I was driving into work one day and I just thought, this is what we’re going to do.

And I started crying. I get a lot of ideas when I’m driving. It’s a good place to think. You have some time. And I was just thinking, I don’t want to get rid of these shoes.  And again, I’m not going to let this stop me from doing all of these things. So I just had this idea that I was going to bring them with us. 

Melissa: So cool. Maybe you’ll share a shoe picture in the Widow Squad. 

Jen: I mean, you figure, 40 pairs of shoes and then I just take one. 80 countries, 80 places to see. We have a lot left to do.

Melissa: Good topic. Thanks for sharing. And thanks listeners for hanging in there with us. We really appreciate you and we will see you next week.