Frozen in time

Days after Alison's passing, the house remained the same, everything left as it was, no tidying, I couldn't bare to move anything. All her shoes remained in the corner by the patio doors, her gym bag on the floor next to the table, the table top cluttered with her things, her Guci handbag hanging on a table chair.

Constant painful reminders of her and that she was never coming back, everything frozen in time from the evening of the accident. 

Gradually after her cremation, I tidied and moved things around, really just to make space for some photos I had printed of her and put in frames. The living room bookcase became a shrine to her,I even had her casket of ashes on the bottom shelf. I didn't know at the time, but it was far too soon to do this, I wasn't strong enough emotionally to see photos of her everywhere and have a shrine to her in the living room, I realised  it would be best for now to move some of her personal items out of view.

I friend gave me a big box printed with butterflies, to use as a memory box, all her personal items are now in it. Her rings, her purse, her passport, the last box of cigarettes I bought her etc etc.

We live in a three storey house, the top of the house was Alison's space, she used a large walk in cupboard as her office, the shower room doubled up as a workshop, the main room on the top floor was taken up with more desks and computer screens. Alison had a degree in electronics and computer science and programming, so everything on the top floor was geared up for her work in that field.

Apart from tdying the main room, her office is as she left it, I have her casket on her desk and photos and her memory box and other personal things dotted around, it is now her shrine, I go up there to talk to her and weep. The workshop hasn't been touched, even now I expect to see her sitting in her office chair or cross legged sitting on the floor at a workshop table.

One of my family members asked me just a couple of days after Alison was taken, 'what are you going to do with all her stuff, all her clothes, are you getting rid of them?

This so annoyed me, no way I said, everything is staying here, clothes everything! They are part of Alison, so are still part of me.