06/24/2026
I keep his side of the closet exactly as he left it.
I know. I know what people say. I know what the grief books say. I know what my sister says every time she visits and glances at the closet and opens her mouth and then looks at my face and closes it again.
I'm not ready. I have not been ready for seventeen months and I do not know when I will be ready and I have decided that is allowed.
His flannel shirts are still on their hangers. His dark suit is still in the dry-cleaning bag from the last time I took it in — January, two months before he died, for his nephew's wedding. His work shirts on the wire hangers he always meant to replace with better ones. His brown leather belt on the hook inside the door.
I don't go in there.
I open my side. I close it again. I don't go to his side.
Today I walked past the bedroom and noticed the closet door was open. Just a gap. Eighteen inches maybe.
I looked through the gap.
Luna was inside. On his side. Standing completely still with her face pressed into his jeans.
Just — pressed into the denim. Eyes closed. Not moving.
I lowered myself to the floor in the hallway. I don't know why. My legs just went.
I watched her through the gap in the door. She didn't come out. She turned one slow circle among his hanging shirts — the hems brushing her back as she moved — and then she curled up on the floor in the center of his side and closed her eyes.
She went to sleep in his clothes.
Among his shirts and his jeans and his brown belt and his dry-cleaning bag with the suit he wore to his nephew's wedding.
I sat on the hallway floor outside that closet for a very long time.
I didn't go in. I didn't call her out. I didn't close the door.
Some things you just have to let happen.
Some grief you just have to witness.
She found her way in there on her own. She knew exactly where to go. She always knows.
His clothes still smell like him. I check sometimes. Quickly, with the door barely open, just enough.
She was in there longer than I ever let myself be.
I think she needed it more than I've been allowing myself to need it.
Maybe tomorrow I'll open that door a little wider. 💔
Maybe tomorrow. 🐾
**n
