Death and What Remains: The Moth Podcast
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What memories do we cherish when a loved one passes away?
Welcome to The Moth. I'm Marc Salinger. Whenever a loved one passes away, they leave behind memories. The way they laughed, their famous chocolate chip cookie recipe, the knowledge that you were cared for by someone special. But they also leave behind things. A locket with a picture of you as a child, a coffee table they made themselves, a wedding dress that's been passed down in the family for generations. Physical objects that serve as reminders of who they were, what they valued, what they touched when they were alive. I view them as little shards of their soul, still here, even though they can't be. On this episode, two stories about the things we leave behind, and who takes care of them when we're gone.
First up is a story from Christina Mijani, who told this at a DC Story Slam. Here's Christina, live at The Mock.
I lost my fiance three weeks before we were due to be married. I went from planning a wedding to planning a funeral. And after having to take so many decisions about coffins and urns and the clothes to send him to the next life in, I just didn't have any bandwidth left to decide what to do with my unworn engagement and wedding rings. It was only on the five-month anniversary of his death when I woke up in what was once our bed and said, today's the day. Today's the day I venture to Mount Doom. which kind of looks like a shopping mall on Black Friday, except it's Germany. So there are beer-loving and schnitzel-eating orcs running about. And inside this mall was the jewelry shop from where the rings had been bought.
And I had asked them to hold on to the rings, you know, until I knew what to do with them. Yaya, they said, take all the time you need. They obviously didn't know what to do with me, what they called their first case of the fiance-less fiance. Not that they know that I take my sweet time to make a decision. I got to the store and the shop assistant seated me in the area overlooking the luxury watches. And that's where I waited for about 25 minutes. And I sat there, looking at the adverts on the wall with slogans about love, how diamonds are forever, and how it's time to celebrate. Much like some people who had tried to console me, it was misguided and at odds with how I was feeling. The slogan that probably resonated most was, don't crack under pressure.
especially as I sat there thinking how, in a matter of weeks, those rings had gone from the bitter bling-bling I dreamed about since I was a kid to a beautiful promise my fiancé and I had made to each other, and finally something symbolizing everything that hadn't happened, the wedding anniversary that just wasn't. And that's when I became certain I did not, could not, want to see those rings. Oh no, no. Up until that moment, I had thought I wanted to keep everything associated with him. Literally, I was worried I was becoming a hoarder. I think about the closet full of clothes that had outlived him. There was the unworn blazer that he was saving for a good occasion that just never came. And that one shirt that was so ugly, I used to call it the, honey, please don't fuck me tonight shirt.
Or as one of the participants would say, no sexy time shirt. Yeah, I'm sure you have one of those shirts. It was hideous. I dreamed about throwing it away. But you know, when someone dies, a funny thing happens. You want to keep everything because they become semi-reverential. It's like memories live in them.
How does Kristina Miggiani cope with her fiancé's death?
So the shop assistant came back with the manager to see if I had made a decision. And that's when I broke down. I started crying and my tears were flowing to the beat of the watches that tick-tock all around me. I was a mess. I was such a mess. I was pretty sure I could give Gollum a run for his money. I had just decided I wasn't going to keep those rings, so the time had come to pick something else. But the fact that I could do this made me feel unfaithful to my grief and shallow to my core, when really all I was trying to do was survive terrible loss and not be another thing he had left behind. Part of the ring experience was a spiritual journey, and it was also a critical part of my grieving process.
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