Two years after becoming suddenly and unexpectedly widowed, one dog dead now too, my daughter 18 and about to leave home, I've closed the Ericka Inn, I've changed the rules. I want only beautiful things around me, only things I love, only my things. So I declutter the dead: Bill's things, his father's things, his mother's things. I declutter the living: my things, Annie's things. Each departing item frees me. Maybe this is a part of grieving, this reassessment, actively ridding and shedding. And sometimes I worry, superstitious: am I preparing myself to die? Well, if I do die, at least nobody will have to do this for me.
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