Sweaters, Ties, And Saying Goodbye

Guest post by Mary Roblyn

Hello and welcome to Notes from the Town Hermit, a haven for the overthinkers and deep-feelers who search for reasons why life should be worth living. I write so you feel seen by giving words to the unspeakable. These letters are a labour of love, so if you have the means and want to sponsor my writing, please upgrade.

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Dear Inklings,

Today, I’m thrilled to welcome

Mary Roblyn

as my very first guest author to Notes from the Town Hermit. Mary's journey as a writer began at the age of seven when she first read Alice in Wonderland, sparking a lifelong passion for the written word.

Born in Minneapolis in 1956, Mary's path to becoming a writer was not without its challenges. Despite facing family expectations that didn’t align with her aspirations, she forged her own way, giving herself an education by reading all of Shakespeare, Dante, Proust, Joyce, the Russians (Dostoyevsky, Chekhov, Tolstoy) the Eliots (George and T.S.); Kafka, Pound, Hemingway, Plath, and more, because as Mary says, “If you’re a writer, you read.”

At eighteen, Mary worked a retail job full-time while going to school full-time at night. She met her future husband when he bought a pair of demitasse cups and kept staring at her. “They made a nice parting gift to his girlfriend,” she says. Her fierce determination led her to graduate with a 3.9 Phi Beta Kappa from the University of Minnesota with a degree in anthropology, though her true passion was languages and linguistics. She studied French, German, Japanese, and took three years of Chinese. In 1998, Mary followed that with an MFA in poetry. All in spite of dropping out of high school after tenth grade.

Mary’s life has been rich with experiences that inform her writing. From her early career as an overachieving stay-at-home mom to her daughter and son, to her work in philanthropy and book publicity, each chapter has contributed to her unique voice.

She's weathered personal storms, including her husband’s death after battling lung cancer for eleven months in 2023 and her daughter’s battle with a rare, aggressive form of breast cancer. Mary has walked her daughter through chemo, radiation, seven surgeries, and more. Like her mother, Mary’s daughter is a true warrior who also has a talent for organising spaces, connecting printers, and flipping switches Mary didn’t know existed.

Mary’s son is married to a lovely woman he met in high school. He has a master’s degree in special ed, and has been working with autistic children for almost a decade. They have two rescue cats, litter mates who speak almost exclusively to each other in their own squeaky language.

On a normal day, you’ll find Mary cooking, hiking, and listening to the records from her teenage years at full volume. This is a real joy for her, especially as she couldn’t listen to them back then unless she put her head down next to the speaker and played it at an almost inaudible level.

Grief opened Mary’s heart in unexpected ways. It led her to start writing again for others to read, creating a beautiful community of deep connections.

On November 3, 2023, Mary launched her Substack, Writer, interrupted, where she shares her insights and connects with a growing community of over 2,200 subscribers after starting from zero. She gained well-deserved recognition as a Substack Featured Publication in 2024 after only five months.

Mary’s writing reflects her belief that while life may interrupt a writer's journey, these interruptions don't last forever. Her story and message is one of resilience and connection.

As E.M. Forster said, “Only connect.” And that’s exactly what Mary does through her writing.

I hope you enjoy reading Mary’s guest essay today.

I am deeply grateful to Tiffany Chu for inviting me to share part of my personal history along with an essay on some aspect of grief. It is a true honor. My story is a reflection on what it feels like to continue the tasks of grieving more than a year after my husband's death, when our culture says that I should be "over" it. Every grief is unique, and takes its own course. There is no right or wrong way to grieve.

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During the first weeks after my husband died, I distracted myself by getting rid of his clothes. I donated shirts, jeans, socks, t-shirts, and jackets to a homeless organization. They were thrilled to get them, and I was pleased to see them put to good use.

I felt I was doing the “grief work” I’d been encouraged by the hospice social worker to do. Relieved of the weight of holding onto things that were simply taking up space, I would feel lighter. And I could move on, to other things. Getting rid of more stuff! I’d gone through our shared dresser and closet. That was everything. Right?

Wrong. Or at least, wrong time. As in, Grief takes time. Don’t rush it. Give yourself time to heal.

Time? I ripped off bandages. Threw away crutches. I didn’t need the long goodbye. Except that I did. After my two-month frenzy of death-cleaning, I stood in the door of his study. His room. His sanctuary.

The shades were down. I took a long look at his cleared desk. His chair. That ratty gray sweater, the one he’d been wearing when I met him, was draped over it.

Enough. I closed the door. I would get on with the cleaning later. It was time to heal.

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After he retired — in was 2021, Covid kept him at home, on Zoom — my husband decided that he had, at last, the time to claim the bedroom that had been our son’s from childhood through college. Time. So precious. I joined him in retirement.

Once the heavily saturated blue and red walls were repainted — surprisingly, it took only one coat to brighten them to a warm white — he’d set up his desk, chair, bookshelves and computers. The move gave us a sunroom. No more joyless bunker of electronics blocking the light. We had a place to sip our coffee in the morning, spy on the neighbors, and have actual conversations.

“How long have you been planning this move?”

He looked up from his crossword puzzle.

“How old is that kid?”

I had to do the math. Born in 1989. “Thirty-two.”

“Sounds about right.” He returned to his puzzle.

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He was diagnosed in May, 2022, of Stage 4 lung cancer. The room became a pharmacy. He added a standing cabinet to hold the bottles of medications and supplements, the compression socks, the implements of his illness — braces, slings, heating pads, massagers, canes — and organized his medical instructions and reminders in folders and files.

He died in April, 2023.

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Later became four months. Six. Nine. I kept the doors to his room closed.

I had my own computer. I had more books of my own than I could read. His tastes ran to science fiction and spy novels, food history, science, and quantum physics. I’d once borrowed from him, and actually read, a book by Stephen Hawking. After finishing it, thrilled that I’d finally understood black holes, wormholes, and at least three out of eleven types of universes, I’d set it down and gone to sleep. The next morning I’d realized that I knew absolutely nothing about anything.

“I didn’t get it, either,” he said, when I handed the book back to him.

“Ah. So we both learned the secrets of the cosmos. And forgot them overnight.”

We laughed. A big, spontaneous laugh. He coughed, and turned back to his computer.

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After he died, I found that my mind was, for the most part, blank.

Except that it wasn’t, exactly. It was filled with dark matter. How else could I explain the two bureaus and the free-standing closet I’d completely overlooked? They were in another universe.

No. They were our son’s. He’d emptied them of his belongings, but hadn’t taken his furniture when he moved out. Inside, were all of my husband’s missing, beautiful clothes.

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I’d wondered why his wardrobe was so meager. Where were the sweaters, the blazers, the coats and ties I’d given put so much thought and love into buying him, over the forty-three years of our marriage? Had he, in an angry moment, slashed them to ribbons? Set them on fire?

He had not. I sat down to do a more difficult sorting than the first.

Knowing that I would not be able to do it alone, I called my son. After all, it had been his room. Certainly, he knew all the cloaking devices. As an adolescent, he’d invented and installed them.

He emptied the contents of the medical cabinet into boxes. His triage was efficient, but not ruthless. His dad had a stash of cannabis gummies.

“Hey. The orange ones. Score!”

I looked up. “You know what would be happening right now if you were sixteen.”

He glanced over at me. Kneeling on the floor, surrounded by piles of his dad’s sweaters, I felt lost. Obsolete. Like poor Pluto, the demoted moon.

“I’d be given a warning, and sent on my way. Liberal parents.”

“Don’t think so.” My voice was sharp. “You may not have lived to see your thirty-fifth birthday.”

His dad had not lived to see his son’s thirty-fifth birthday.

Tears welled up. I looked away. Not fast enough. He came over and hugged me. His shoulders. Chest. No, his father’s sweaters were too small for him.

But the ties! All were silk. I’d bought him the best: Burberry, Dior. And many with labels from men’s clothing stores that no longer exist. Fine ones, hand-stitched. I don’t know if he wore them more than once before sliding them back onto the rack.

“Mom. I have one tie. Weddings and funerals. You taught me that.”

“I did?”

Yes. That was me. Teaching my son to be pragmatic. Sensible, unlike his mom.

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I waited until he was gone. The silence felt absolute, as if every molecule had been stilled. As if I were hovering between universes.

I held each sweater to my face, folded it, and set in a neat pile. Their rough fibers are rich with memories, as if dyed into them. I’d bought the best I could afford, and some that I couldn’t. Some years, those sweaters stayed on my credit card balance for five or six cycles, revolving, relentlessly incurring interest.

It had been a year. It was time. I filled boxes, and stacked them downstairs. I called the homeless shelter and arranged pickup.

The ratty gray cardigan he was wearing when I first met him, the one he continued to wear throughout the forty-three years of our marriage, stayed. I held it for a long time, then draped it over his chair. I pulled the shades, and quietly closed the door.

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Thank you,

Tiffany Chu

! It is a great honor and privilege to be featured as a guest author on Notes from the Town Hermit.