A Journey Through My Dead Aunt’s Closet

There’s a lot of mixed feelings that come about when you’re cleaning out your dead aunt’s closet. On one hand, you suddenly have access to dozens of well-made—and free!—statement pieces to add to your wardrobe that you never would have been able to afford on your own as a broke twenty-something. On the other hand, your aunt is dead.

Death is funny in that way, I’ve found—convenient in surprising ways, terrible in most of them. My aunt passed away less than a month before Thanksgiving, and as the holiday approached, my first thought was, “At least I won’t have to maneuver that awkward conversational dance over turkey where she tries to talk about politics I don’t agree with and I keep my mouth permanently affixed to a wine glass so I won’t say anything that might cause a scene.” But then I remembered the only reason my aunt couldn’t make it to the dinner was because she died and I felt horrible all over again.

Standing in front of the large vanity mirror, I sift through a mangled garbage bag stuffed with skirts and dresses. My mother brought over everything she said she thought was very “me”, which feels particularly weird when talking about something my aunt used to own. Maybe that’s because, through the years, it had become harder and harder to see any resemblance between the two of us. My once fun-loving, empathetic aunt had become closed off over the years, callous and alarmist in a way that both concerned and irritated me. It was surreal to see a woman I once considered a kindred spirit become a stranger. It was as if our souls no longer spoke the same language.

But my mother is right—the bag is full of the sorts of clothes I would greedily pluck from a thrift store’s shelves. I don’t recognize most of them, and it’s strange to imagine the woman I knew—or, perhaps, the woman I was in the process of unknowing—wearing anything so colorful, so lively, so vivacious. It makes me wonder who she was when she slipped on the fabric: the woman I’d spent the last few years avoiding or someone I never got to meet?

My mother warned that some of the clothes might not fit me, so I’m surprised when I zip up a floral sundress and find that it cradles my body as if it were made for me. What is that saying? Fits like a glove. Or maybe it should be fits like a second skin. I imagine my aunt shedding it off like a snake, unaware that it would be the last time she ever wore it, unaware that I would soon find a home in the fabric the way a hermit crab makes a home of an abandoned shell. I twirl and the way the skirt flutters around me makes me want to laugh. It is a dress made for loving life. Did she feel like that when she wore it, too? It’s hard to imagine now.

I study myself in the mirror for a long moment and suddenly that heart-clutching feeling settles into my chest. I think about how a few months before her death, my aunt’s picture popped up on my friend’s Facebook feed. “Oh wow, you look a lot like her,” my friend told me. At the time, the comment bothered me—it wasn’t supposed to be an insult, but it still felt like one. It had less to do with how my aunt physically looked and more to do with the resentment that had been boiling deep inside my gut for half a decade, maybe longer. All those years of bottled up emotions feel so pointless now. You’re not allowed to dislike a dead person, unless that dead person happens to be a mass murderer. But it’s more than that—looking back, it all seems so petty. I wanted so badly to create a wall between us and now we’re separated by perhaps the most expansive veil of all—life and death—and all I can think about is how I technically got the space I wanted but that I never wanted this.

I shimmy out of the sundress and try on another, this one skintight and electric blue with elaborate details along the back. It’s not the kind of dress you casually buy for fun. The tags are still on and I wonder why she bought it, then wonder why it remained untouched in her closet. Party dress, never worn. Less tragic than other iterations, I suppose, but it still feels so poignant to me.

How many things will I never know about her now? I have so many questions I wish I could ask, none of which I ever considered when she was alive. None of which I would have had the courage to ask even if she still were. The chasm that had grown between us felt too big, too deep. Truthfully, if I could turn back time to the last time I saw her, I’m not sure what I would say, if I would change anything about our interaction at all. I’d have to go back 10 years—maybe 15—to talk to her the way I wish I could. Back then, I idolized her. She taught me how to drive a golf cart, showed me my first R-rated movie, listened closely to every story idea that popped into my head. But she was a different person then. Then again, so was I.

At the bottom of the garbage bag, I find a snakeskin-patterned dress. It’s the only piece of clothing I recognize from when she was alive. She wore it at the lakehouse one summer while she sipped white wine and danced with me and my cousins out on the porch. It’s almost uncanny how clearly I remember it. Maybe it’s because, at the time, that dress embodied everything I admired about her—her quirkiness, her playfulness, her boldness. They were all things I, an awkward and insecure pre-teen, wished I could be.

My mom was wrong about this dress, though—it doesn’t look like me. When I step into it, all I see is my aunt, her head thrown back in laughter on a warm summer day. For a moment, I notice the flicker of resemblance my friend told me about, but I don’t feel the resentment I did before. In the mirror, I am myself and something else—a shadow, a memory, a leaf on a branch of a hundred-foot tree. And suddenly, strangely, I wish my aunt could see me. I am the singular party of a shared moment, a messenger with no one left to pass on this sacred knowledge to. It feels wrong that she will never know the woman I am becoming or recognize the parts of her that, throughout my lifetime, have taken root in me. I find myself hoping that, even during those strained years where I wanted so badly to purge myself of her, she noticed them in me, too.

I peel off the dress, carefully smooth it out. Yes, the dress isn’t me—I can’t imagine ever wearing it—but instead of putting it back in the garbage bag with the rest of the clothes I don’t plan on keeping, I carefully place it on a hanger to store at the back of my closet. Maybe I’ll get rid of it later. Another day. Maybe.