(Three-Year, 36,000 Mile Check-Up)

In the months leading up to her death in December 2013, my mother often said with sad resignation, “It will be like I was never here.” She typically voiced that concern when discussing the inevitable disposal of her cherished belongings – elephant figurines, crystals, teacups, scrapbooks, Star Trek memorabilia and countless other collectibles that represented her personal fascinations. The thought that they would end up in a Goodwill box, and all evidence of her existence would be erased, tormented her.

The truth is that the vast majority of the material possessions she treasured were reverently distributed among immediate family members and a few close friends who wanted keepsakes. Today I’m sure every one of the recipients of these beloved baubles enjoys gazing at them from time to time. I’m equally sure each and every one of them would say they don’t actually need a physical reminder of this precious person we called Mom, Grandma Joy, Auntie Joy or dear friend. The mark she left on our lives is far more powerful and timeless than any memento could ever be.

So why is it that – three years, one month and 20 days later – I cannot get her wistful lament out of my head?

 It will be like I was never here.

This mournful prediction will never be true – at least not in my lifetime or the lifetimes of my children and grandchildren. Mom is with us in our hearts every day. She and I shared the same zany sense of humor and, when I giggle uncontrollably about one outlandish thing or another, she is right there with me. On Saturday nights when the kids and grandkids descend on my house for a weekly meal and family reboot, we sometimes imagine what she might have said about this or that and whether she would have liked a particular dish on the menu. This past Christmas Eve, while everyone was in hysterics over a spirited game of Jenga, my daughter-in-law suddenly saw Mom out of the corner of her eye, standing next to her old chair, wearing a white dress splashed with flowers, watching us. You don’t even have to believe the sighting in order to be warmed by the thought.

So, again, with the connection to Mom still so strong, why can’t I let go of her fear? I suppose, in reality, it has now become my fear. It’s a heavy, burdensome inheritance from the woman who gave me life and who I escorted to the next one.

What if I start to forget the sound of her voice or what her hand in mine felt like or the details of the stories she told and retold? Coincidentally, I have similar fears about my sweet Springer Spaniel, Katie, who died at the end of last summer. I never want to forget how soft her coat was or how her little stub of a tail wagged vigorously when I came home from work or how she always managed to convert a quick pat on the head into a lengthy rub of her hind end.

This is the angst I live with every day. It’s a fear of the growing distance between the time they were here and the time they were not. It’s a separation anxiety not unlike my dog’s recurring panic whenever I had to leave her. Truth be told, it has triggered some rather odd behavior on my part.

Every time my husband empties the dishwasher, I come along behind him and rearrange the coffee mugs so that Mom’s favorites are stored in what was “her corner” of the cupboard. Although the bathroom connected to her bedroom has now become my domain, I haven’t had the fortitude to change the decor or dispose of some of the powders and lotions that were in her medicine box when she departed. There are gouges cut by her wheelchair in the door frame of her toilet room that should probably be repaired. And it was only because of my dog’s end-of-life incontinence that I finally surrendered and steam cleaned the carpet in Mom’s bedroom, erasing evidence of the day she fell asleep in her chair and a nearly full cup of tea slid out of her hands. I actually took a picture of the stain before running the machine over that spot. (OK, two pictures.)

Likewise, I went around the house snapping photos of the dark shadows on walls where my dog loved to cozy up and sleep before I could finally muster the resolve to point a bottle of Formula 409 at those smudges. More than three months had to pass after her death before I could bring myself to remove the reminder for her monthly pain injection from the front of the refrigerator. Even then I didn’t throw it away. It is tucked in a Ziploc bag with the care instructions I always left out for my husband when I had to be away overnight.

So what is it that causes an otherwise normal human being to obsessively preserve evidence that a loved one existed? In this column, I have always tried to refrain from espousing words of wisdom that might label me as an armchair psychologist, so I will carefully answer this question only from my own perspective and through my own soul searching.

Reluctance to dispose of possessions, change routines or redecorate is rooted in the same need that causes a person to spray-paint “Bob was here” on a boulder in the desert. Gravestones are kind of like that. So are those wooden crosses erected on the side of the road in memory of accident victims. Even charitable and advocacy organizations that spring up after a family suffers a tragic loss are tools of the “remember me” trade.

I’ve never painted on a rock and thankfully don’t need a tombstone yet. However, when I was 17 years old and heartbreaking circumstances forced my parents to sell our beloved home in rural Oregon, I took a break from cleanup to slyly deposit a tiny reminder that I, Laurie Samsel Olson, had lived there. I put a bobby pin on top of the door frame that separated the kitchen from the den. Such a small act, and I’m sure the hairpin was tossed into the trash sometime in the last 46 years. I want to believe that, when it was found, someone at least thought, “Hmmm. Well, how did that get up there?”

Pragmatic people would no doubt say what I already know intellectually and that I stated early in this column. Physical reminders of a lost loved one are not critical. The mark that they left on our lives is far more powerful and timeless than any memento could ever be.

And yet, letting go of the tangible in deference to the power of the intangible is much easier said than done. I still want to see and touch things that my mother saw and touched. I want to hold my dog’s dirty old collar and know that her DNA is still on it. Somehow, their belongings establish a comforting link between the world they now call home and the world we formerly shared. Today I can’t think of one good reason to sever that strong, psychological tie.

Realistically, I know it will happen. Someday I will redecorate Mom’s bathroom, repair the gouges in the door frame of the toilet room and paint over them, and rearrange the kitchen cupboards. Likewise, I will round-file the instructions for my dog’s care and take her old, lumpy bed out of our home office. I will do these things. Intuitively, I know I will. But I also know that none of that will happen until my heart is absolutely sure that I’ve successfully wrangled with and tamed the plaintive voice in my head that still whispers …

 It will be like I was never here.

No, Mom, that won’t ever be true. No, that will never be the case, my sweet Katie girl. You were here. You will always be here.

(Today’s column is dedicated to my sister-in-law, Lori Samsel, whose mother, Donna Anderson, passed away on Friday, January 27, 2017. She, too, will never be forgotten.)