Interior Decoration

As I write this, in the wee hours of a Sunday morning, mementos of Arabella's life and of Arabella's & my life together surround me in the home that we so carefully outfitted as an expression of our individualities, our histories, our values, and our marriage.  These things are more than "stuff."  They are material extensions of very conscious intentionalities... precious sacramentals of the sacrament of marriage, I guess.  ---   Now that Arabella has died, I don't intend to make our home into a mausoleum or a shrine.  Arabella would laugh herself silly at me, if I ever tried, and I'm sure her chortling would reach my ears... and box them good!  However, I'm not ready to move anything... not just yet.  I'll probably need help to do so, when I know the time has come.  Right now, it's painful to encounter these tokens of love and, now, of loss too; it's equally painful to contemplate changing their placement, putting them in storage, or giving them away.   So, I'm frozen amidst warm reminders, in a dilemma of grief.