Packing Up Harry's Room

I have to pack up Harry's Room.

I don't know how to do this.

We are in the middle of a major renovation of our house - so major that three weeks ago we moved out into a friend's house. (Aside: We were super fortunate that this friend / former colleague of Henry's has moved back to the US to take up a tenure track position in Denver and his beautifully renovated house on the river here in Winnipeg has not yet sold. He is kindly letting us stay here during our renovations. If anyone is looking to buy a beautiful river lot in Winnipeg drop us a line!!!)

Our main floor is basically gutted, as are our bathroom, watercloset, linen closet & half of the back bedroom on the second floor and the hallway / stairwell wall between the second and third floors of our house. We have moved everything out of our house and put it in storage, either in the basement or in a storage container. Every single room is now packed up and basically empty, or with the remaining furniture pushed into the middle of the room and covered in tarps.

Except Harry's room.

I have not yet had the courage to face packing up Harry's room.

I thought it would be easier to do this way. That is, since we are packing up everything else it wouldn't feel like such an individual or final act. We're not just packing up Harry's room, we're packing up everything in the house.

But it isn't the same. It feels incredibly final and I just don't want to do it.

We'll unpack everything else. In a few months, everything else will come out of the boxes and be put back into its place where ever it belongs in the house.

Except for Harry's things. Harry's room will never again be Harry's room after the renovations. It's going to be our office. We're giving the baby our room and we're moving to the back bedroom, because I want the baby to have his own space, not his brother's space. But once I pack these things up, they will never be put out in the same space. This is a letting go that feels so overwhelming, it almost feels like a betrayal to Harry. Though I know in my heart it isn't. He isn't in that room anymore. He is everywhere in the universe and always in our hearts. But still it is so final a thing to pack up his room.

I don't want to touch it.

I tried yesterday afternoon.

Henry and I spent a few hours in the house, finally finishing up cleaning out the last bits in our room. I still had some time before we had to go back to Kingston Row (where we're staying) to prepare for Thanksgiving Dinner. I went into Harry's room and sat in my rocking chair, surveyed the room, trying to decide where to start, and I couldn't do it.

I sat and held onto his baby blanket, cuddled on my shoulder just as I had held him in it so many days and nights, and rocked in the chair and cried and cried and cried. I cried so hard I could barely breathe.

I don't want to change a thing about his room.

I don't want to take down his crib. I don't want to pack his books off his shelf. I don't want to pack away his shoes - his yellow crocks and his brown squeekers. I have so many memories of sitting for hours nursing him in that chair. I don't want to not be able to sit in that chair and remember him there.

The chair is in front of the window and a toy wooden block train sits on the window ledge. Sometimes, even in the middle of the night, Harry would finish nursing and instead of falling back to sleep on my shoulder he would reach over my shoulder for one of the train pieces. So I would sit with him, at 3:00 am and we'd play with the train in my lap and he'd laugh and laugh. Until he would get sleepy again, start to lose interest in the toy, and I could cuddle him in again, resting his head on my shoulder, one of the blocks from the train clutched in his chubby hand. We'd rock, I'd kiss his soft head and he'd drift off. I'd eventually pull the toy from his relaxed grasp and gently place him back into his crib.

Will I lose those memories if I can't sit in his room and remember them?

I most certainly don't know what to do with his clothes. I am afraid to open his closet and take out his clothes and pack them up.

They still smell like Harry. Even though I have washed all of them since he passed over, they still smell like him. Especially in his last few weeks he had a really distinct smell about him, and that smell still lingers strongly on his clothes. When I need to I can go into his room, open his closet, take out one of my favourites of his outfits, inhale deeply and still smell him.

I am terrified that if I pack up everyting and put it in a box it will lose its smell, his wonderful Harry smell. I am not ready to let that go.

So I am not sure what to do. I need to pack up his room, so they can put in the new wndows and paint the walls. But I can't touch his clothes. I don't want to just leave them in his room, because they'll get too dusty, and have to be washed, and then they might not smell right anymore. But I am not ready to move his things out of his dresser. But I have to decide soon, the decision can't wait forever.

I guess I just have to sit and still my mind and listen to my heart. It hasn't led me wrong so far where Harry is concerned. I have to trust that it will lead me to the right choice in this case too. I have to figure out some sort of compromise. Does anyone know a way to capture and bottle a smell? Not the essence of a flower or plant, but just a smell left clinging to clothes? I wish I knew how.

Maybe one day I won't need the smell of Harry. But I am not there now. Right now I need that smell to still have my connection to him. I try to always think, "what would Harry want me to do?" "What would honour him in the best way?" But I am just not sure.

But somehow this week, I have to figure this out and figure out how to do this.

Love,
Cynthia