Widowed: He’s Gone. And Now So Is His Barbecue

I gave away Jon’s barbecue the other day. Also his barbecue utensils — the fancy, upscale utensils that I must have given him for his birthday one year, or Father’s Day. And now there’s a big empty spot on the deck where the barbecue sat forlorn and unused for the four years following Jon’s death.

Jon liked to barbecue. He liked to load up his skewers with cubes of chicken and chunks of onions and pepper. He like to slather it all with barbecue sauce, carry it from the kitchen out to the deck, and drop it onto a hot grill.

There was something about being out there with food and fire and sky that worked for Jon, the piney fragrance of our towering cypress tree mingling with the barbecue smoke.

Jon liked to barbecue. I don’t. Mostly I don’t like cleaning up after a barbecue.

So Jon’s barbecue has sat unused these past four years.

A Widow Declutters

The White Elephant sale people at the Oakland Museum wouldn’t take it off my hands. No thanks, they said. No propane tanks.

The gardener said she wanted it, and she hauled it away last month.

And now I miss it.

Meanwhile, I’ve dropped Jon’s utensils off at a neighbor’s house.

I put them by her front door and headed for my car. But then I turned around, went back, and took a good-bye photo of Jon’s barbecue forks, rib rack, tongs.

They are just things, I told myself. They aren’t Jon. And decluttering is a good thing. The kids like it when I get rid of stuff. Less for them to contend with were I to break up housekeeping or die on short notice.

Widowed: He’s Gone. And Now So Is His Barbecue

Things are just things. But they were Jon’s things. In their tub on my neighbor’s welcome mat, they spoke to me of him. His wants and doings still clung to them, his desires, his quiet moments out on the deck preparing a dinner he hoped would taste good.

Check out Jon making a meal in our temporary kitchen during our pandemic era remodel at “Our Remodel Has Kept Us Company.”