Donating Frank's clothes

In my previous life -- before Frank died -- there was one thing I thought about widows, if I even thought about them at all. And that thought was: "It must be hardest thing, to get rid of his clothes." It was a strange aspect to think about, for sure. But now that I have had that experience, I can see why it's a point of wonder.

I have made two trips to Goodwill in recent weeks. Both times I dropped off huge bags of Frank's clothes -- 13 bags total. Certainly more than would fit in the car, in a single trip. And both times I cried. It's kind of like a final goodbye, all over again.

It's not that the husband's clothes are the "last thing" to go out the door, but they may as well be. In Frank's case, he loved dressing well. He dressed distinctively, too -- three-piece suits, suspenders and bow ties for the courtroom. For days around the house, he liked jeans and LLBean flannel shirts. Or a variety of T-shirts that he had collected through the years, many from the Gilbert and Sullivan productions that his family had roles in, in Ellsworth in the 1990s.

The clothes added up to 13 bags largely because he had so many. There were jean, T-shirts and more from the years before we lived together, when he never threw away anything that still fit him. But, I confess, we added plenty of new clothes, or at least new-to-him, during our marriage. When I found some of his fancy suits for $3 at a local thrift store with ties to Bar Harbor, he said, "Someone my size who dressed well must have died."

Frank's older clothes never made it to Goodwill, as they were well-worn and went the way of good riddance, instead. But the bulk of those 13 bags should well-outfit any other men who stand 5-7 and weigh 150 pounds. Now, I can say  with a smile that -- someone who wants  to dress well, who is Frank's size, can do that, because of this donation. And with all the suits and suspenders, comes some quite fancy dress shoes, too.

As for Frank's collection of more than 100 bow ties, most of them hand-sewn by himself  -- that didn't go to Goodwill. That stays with me ... until I figure out what to do with them, creatively.