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I wasn’t expecting this memory to come up today. It’s been nine years, nearly ten, since my brother, Matthew passed away. In the past few weeks, I’ve been thinking about Matthew. While the grief is still there, with the passing of time I have been able to smile more when I remember him.

But the memory that came up today isn’t one that really made me smile.

It was early in January, 2015 and we were in the USA for a couple of years. My youngest daughter was home from school. She had been sick so I kept her home while I cleaned the house. The family teases me about my cleaning obsession but I don’t feel at rest when the house is upside down. My husband and son helped as well and cleaned the garage. You know the garage, the place where things are set down for an undetermined period of time.

A suitcase and some laundry

Something I hadn’t considered when asking them to clean the garage was a suitcase filled with my brother’s clothes as well as a bag containing the clothes he wore when he was admitted to the hospital. We didn’t know when he went in on that Monday that he would never come back home.

I had placed these two items, the suitcase, and plastic bag, in a corner behind some boxes a few days after he died. Someday, I thought, I would pull those things out and wash them. I knew my father wanted some of his things at some point. I just didn’t know that was the day that I would have to confront the suitcase and plastic bag.

A blur but there was laundry

His passing in February 2014 was unexpected, quick, and of course very sad and traumatic. The events that occurred after his passing, the memorial service, closing of his affairs, are all a bit of a blur.

Every once in a while, during these months, the suitcase and plastic bags would catch my eye. The laundry needed to be done but I couldn’t face it. The grief I felt was still too intense to face that load of laundry.

The laundry was still undone

Bills began pouring in and I began helping with the long process of notifying all creditors he had passed. It took a number of phone calls over the course of several months to convince the hospitals and physicians’ offices and labs that he had indeed died. I faxed and re-faxed documents. I even faxed his death certificate multiple times as proof of his passing. The phone calls, despite our concerted efforts to let everyone know in a timely fashion of his passing, seemed to be unending. Finally, the last phone call was made and all notices of collection stopped.

I find it sad that when someone dies that companies are as heartless as they were to us in those days. Having to handle all these documents time and again only reminded us that Matthew left us all too soon.

He had nothing left from his estate, how could anyone collect something from nothing? I still shake my head in bewilderment. There is a business side to death and it is merciless.

Time to sort the laundry

So that morning, after the guys were done cleaning the garage, I went in and saw the plastic bag and suitcase sitting conspicuously out in the open.  I knew it was time to do the laundry. Tentatively, I sat on the floor and opened the bag and suitcase. I remembered seeing him in the outfit I pulled from the bag. His shoes were worn according to the way he walked. I pictured him as I best remember him: on the track field.

My brother, Matthew, was a runner when he was younger. He still holds a local 5k record (his time is 15:03) for that run. This is a fact that I proudly announce to any running enthusiast who will listen. Even if they don’t want to listen, I slip the information in.

I pulled shirts, shoes, trousers, shoes, and a belt from the suitcase. And I tried to smell them to see if the scent of the cologne he loved lingered in them. No. They smelled musty from being in the garage. My eyes then moved to the airline sticker still on his bag from his last flight to Florida. I cried and remembered that he came back to Florida just weeks before he died. I wish I had known then he had so little time left.

The last load of laundry

I loaded the washer with his clothes and said, “Matt, this is the last time I’m doing your laundry!” As kids I would often wash his clothes and was always irritated when mom asked me to do his laundry. There won’t be another load, there wouldn’t be another chance to complain about having to do his laundry.

The laundry of grief

I don’t think grief ever fully leaves us as we live here on this earth. It becomes an unwanted companion that we can’t get rid of, so we learn to live with it. It is at this juncture that we have to come to terms with what will we do with that unwanted companion called grief.

There’s another load of laundry I had to do after Matthew died. I combined that load of laundry with the laundry of grief I still held onto after my mother died. She died a little more than five years before Matthew.

It was a super load, you know the highest setting on your washer? That’s the spiritual setting I had to use for this laundry. I was afraid that I didn’t have the capacity to handle washing all that pain from my soul.

A strong detergent

For a long time, I didn’t want to be comforted. I felt the loss of Matthew, and my mother before him, deeply. It felt wrong to let go of pain. I found it difficult to allow myself to enjoy life.

With the passing of time, I began to understand that the pain we feel when losing someone is simply a marker of the love we have for them. When they pass away, the pain we feel is the pain of not being able to see them any longer, talk with them, or even argue with them (as I did with my mom and brother 🤣). That part of grief hurts deeply and it is the part of grief that we become accustomed to: the silence.

Hope even in the silence

While that silence seems endless, there is hope while we mourn and bear the load of silence. It is this hope that gives us light in the darkness. We know that while the silence may almost overwhelm us, the hope we have speaks louder and stronger than the silence. There is a destination we are all headed towards and one day, their silence will be broken when we meet in that city that we’re making our way towards.

When Matthew died, one of the things I missed most was hearing his laugh because Matthew had a great laugh. He had an amazing sense of humor. His voice is silent in my ears now, although I can remember it well. There will come a day when I’ll hear him again. That’s the hope that speaks louder than the silence. It is this hope, this knowing that what we live in the here and now isn’t all that there is to experience, that tempers that awful companion of grief.

The sting of death, the sting of grief, will one day fully bow its knee (see 1 Corinthians 15:54-57). Until that day, I am learning to smile through the tears as I imagine Matthew, together with my mother, laughing together and enjoying all that heaven has to offer.

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