Back when we moved in here 29 1/2 years ago, for some reason I took the small closet and Don got the walk-in.
It's been years since he cleared it out. Years. Years and years. When Don died, one could not actually walk into it. The most one could do was step in perhaps eight inches. It was really, really full.
My sweetheart was a packrat's packrat.
Alexander nobly shouldered the chore of getting that stuff out of there, spending close to twelve hours on it yesterday. Mind, the closet isn't actually clear, as there's no where else to put some of his clothes, such as his sports coats and suits. I bought a couple of those stand-alone garment hanger things at Target today (which Beth kindly assembled for me), and one is in the hall (holding shirts) and the other in the dining room (shirts and other things).
This doesn't do justice to the amount of stuff Alex hauled out of The Closet, as he'd already cleared out large trash bags of magazines, etc.:
See those three large boxes on the left? Actually, make that four. Yup. Full of stuff from The Closet. See the pile of clothes? Yup. From The Closet. To be fair, the stuff in the lower right is not from The Closet.
Here's The Closet last night; it's got some more stuff back into it now, however:
It's a lot deeper on the right. Don had a chest of drawers over there, which is out of the picture. The closet is a lot larger than I'd realized.
Folks, if some of y'all are packrats with closets, etc. filled to the brim, do your loved ones a favor and clean 'em out already! It's not nice to leave them for the bereaved to deal with. Mind, had Don the least idea he was going to be hauled to glory a good deal faster'n he'd expected, I've no doubt he'd have bitten the bullet and cleaned out his closet.
And the garage.
And the attic.
And the off-site storage facility. Yes, those are still to come.
This morning the doorbell rang and at first my heart plummeted to my shoes to see a police officer standing there. "Charles? Jonathan?" I fearfully thought.
Turned out it was Rick, one of Alex's oldest friends, who is now with the Dallas police department and whose grandmother lives close by. He'd seen Alex entering the house and stopped to see him for the first time in years. He didn't know about Don's death and was visibly shaken by it, bless his heart. Naturally he wasn't getting away without a photo!
While at Target I bought a package of those pre-cut sugar cookies so Hannah could decorate them. Unfortunately I didn't hear the timer go off for the majority of them, so they burned, but the eight remaining came out okay:
Even Faith got a turn, the poppet. ;^) And here's a picture of her with Alex, the Closet-Slayer:
BTW, see the silver ring with a cross on it that he's wearing? That was the ring I gave Don on our first anniversary. Alex had it sized and cleaned, and it looks brand new again. I know Don would be pleased that Alex is wearing it now.
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