Removing Traces

I've just finished reading Anne Morrow Lindbergh's Hour of Gold, Hour of Lead. This memoir, containing Anne Lindbergh's diary entries and letters from 1929 to 1932, gives a glimpse into the joys and deep sorrow of her life. Her marriage to Charles Lindbergh, their flights together (including a fascinating around-the-world voyage), the birth of their first child, Charles, are overshadowed by the tragic kidnapping and murder of their little boy. Anne's grief is powerful and all-encompassing, even as she awaits the birth of her second son, Jon, and even as she is joyful at this second birth.

While Anne Lindbergh's grief stays with me, it is one particular passage, dealing with another topic, that especially caught my interest and surprised me. It surprised me because I'd just recently read a similar sentiment in someone else's blog, and it is a sentiment I'd never really thought about before.

Anne's sister, Elisabeth, has just left the Lindberghs' home after a visit, and the maid is cleaning the guest room where Elisabeth stayed. Anne says, "Mary rushed to clean up [the room] and run the vacuum cleaner over the rugs. How I hate that still, closed-eyes look of a room when the person has left. It should not be cleaned up so quickly, as though it could forget the person, as though it could turn, from a living companion, into just 'room,' 'master's bedroom,' so quickly.

In Caryn's blog, she says, after waving goodbye to her son who has just paid a visit, "What am I doing? Why, when I miss the children so when they leave us, do I hurry to remove all traces of their being here? Why not leave those sheets on the bed a while longer so I can continue to inhale and take in the whisper of fragrance he left behind?"

I'm not suggesting plagiarism here! What I am doing is continuing to think about this habit we have of cleaning up a bedroom after a guest has left. I'm guilty of rushing to remove the sheets and replace them with clean ones, of tidying up the room to leave no traces of the recent guest. But why? 

I think, in my case, it helps to ease the pain of having a loved one leave. I've always had a difficult time with goodbyes, embarrassing myself and probably my husband with a flood of tears that I can't seem to harness. Often I'm crying still as I clean the bedroom, removing traces of a treasured visitor. I remember feeling so sad and empty when nieces and nephews, my mother, friends would go home after visiting us. Getting the room cleaned helped me get my emotions under control and get on with my life. But maybe next time someone special visits, I'll leave the guest room as is for awhile after their visit.