Eight months later, she opened the closet. His closet. It was finally time to clean it out.

The plan was to sort everything into four categories: Things to throw away, things to give to charity, things to give to her kids, and the smallest category, things to keep for herself.

It was time to let go. Time to let go of forty years of marriage, even longer when she considered their courtship period. Forty years of paying bills, of making a home, of making love, of fighting over meaningless things, of taking long family road trips, of reading report cards, of quiet dinners at home, of birthdays at the Russian Tea Room, of barbecues in the back yard, of trips to the hospital, of falling asleep together in front of the TV. It all had to be sorted out and most of it had to go.

She stared at the closet.

It was impossible to start.