The Polo Shirt of Grief

By: Meghan G

I’m eight and bit years down the track of grief, the memories that were once as crisp as a winter morning are now slightly foggy like an autumn sunrise. There are a few glistening dew drops as I recall what he once did, said and sounded like.

My grief, once as sharp as samurai sword could practically cut me just by me walking by, is now a bit blunted, as if it’s been used over and over again. It can still do some damage, but it’s just not as often or as intense. Or, that’s what I thought until today.

My brother went out one night in 2011, came home, got into bed and somehow (although the details are sketchy) never woke up again. When I went to clear out his apartment, I found the polo shirt that he’d worn out that night. It was tossed on a chair near his bed where his heartbeat for the last time. I kept it, and some other trinkets, but that shirt smelled of his aftershave, and I treasured it. I keep it stored in a bag, and when he first died, I’d take it out and smell it, which was the most comforting thing to do in the world.

After a few years, it lost his smell and just smelt of cloth, so I just left if where it was, in the back of a drawer, inside a bag, inside a bag. Knowing that it was there but not doing anything with it.

My task over the past day or so has been to sort through stuff in an attempt to Marie Condo my life. I had prepared myself, and I even told myself ‘if I find anything of Gee’s I can just get rid of it, it’s only stuff.’

So today I open this neoprene bag that the shirt is stored in and the plastic bag that I wrapped the shirt up in has completely disintegrated. Hundreds of little plastic bits fall out like confetti, a weird metaphor for his life disintegrating and disappearing.

Then, I take the shirt out, and I start stroking it. Instantly the most intense pain, hurt and sadness hits me. A pain so intense that I can’t breathe, it’s like I’m in a rip tide and I can’t get out as it swallows me whole and I go deep down into the depths of despair. All the thoughts and memories come back as the fog has is lifted, and the samurai sword stabs me right in the guts, and it feels familiar and comfortable. So, I allow myself to be taken by the current, riding the waves as they crash up and down and in and out, sometimes I’m bobbing along and then the next moment crash, another wave hits and I’m underwater again struggling to see the surface. Then finally after a while, I reach the shore, where I can look back at the waves surging but I’m calm, I’m breathing and I’m fine.

And that’s when I knew, I’m not quite ready to give that polo shirt up.

This story original appeared on Medium by Meghan G of SiblingLoss.org