My father's clothes

I still smell my father on his teal jacket. My husband, the king of the engineer mind, smells my father too. We can't describe the smell. It is musky and something I detected a year or so before my father's death. When I finally shared this secret with the hospice nurse, she said, "Yes," she knows that smell well.

Each time I was close to my father, I melted into a terrible sadness; I knew he couldn't shower this smell away. My father bathed or showered daily, even when a nurse was required to transfer him from bath chair back to lounge chair, and finally into hospital bed. Maybe this odor is another kind of pheromone. Maybe it helps loved ones confront their mourning.

The rest of my father's clothes remain in boxes— long rectangular boxes, with crisscross designs, and the word "Hal" scrawled on top in indelible ink. Some of these boxes have been there since my mother and father moved to be closer to me. Inside the boxes are sweaters "“ cardigans, yellow, beige, one pale lime, all from Botany 500 for extra tall men. Hanging in my own overflowing closet is his dress coat "“ a tweed double-breasted coat with a belt "“ too large for my husband or my father's older brother, who has shrunk from heart disease and cancer.

Legacy of Korea

My father's younger brother lives alone and manages an apartment building in lieu of rent. He used to be debonair— black hair, tall, well built. Now his limbs just seem to wilt and his face is rarely shaven. He's a vet with post-traumatic stress that has percolated since Korea.

My father's coat might fit him, though, and after the unveiling, when everyone returns to my home to eat white fish and pita sandwiches stuffed with egg salad, I will offer it. I'm sure this gesture has been repeated a million times by a million women: coats and shirts and ties and hats, handed over to an uncle or a brother.

Last week I promised my mother that I would take my father's clothes, including the teal jacket, to a nearby thrift shop. She asked that it be a thrift shop associated with a Jewish organization: "That's what he would want."

Jewish cowboys

I know it's true. My father read constantly, but all of his books, one way or the other, were, finally, about Jews. My husband and I would joke, listing the possible topics: Jewish cowboys. Jewish pilots. Jewish farmers. Jewish chefs.

He especially loved Jewish gangsters. He would show me photos of how they wore their pinstriped, well-tailored suits, with silk hankies fastidiously peeking out of pockets.

The Hadassah Thrift Shop is miles away and I avoid this trip. How do I let go of the jacket that smells like our own trips to chemo and radiation and taxis and vomit and sluggish transfers in and out of chairs?

Still, I promised my mother that, within a few weeks, I will empty the last closet, the one still stuffed with stacks of neatly piled shoeboxes, pale blue pajamas folded over a wire hanger, several slacks, mostly browns and beiges and khakis, and, of course, the carton of cardigans. Once I finish, my mother will be able to open the closet and not wring her hands. There will be extra room. Or it will remain empty. The one thing I am certain of, the one thing I know, is how she will hang those cedar rectangles that eradicate moths and lingering odors.♦


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