The Sweater

Today I found her sweater again.

The mustard yellow one with the loose threads on the cuffs. The one she wore when she was sad. Or cold. Or both. It still smells like her faint perfume and something warm, like vanilla left in the sun.

I didn’t mean to find it. I wasn’t looking. I’d been digging through old boxes in the attic, trying to throw away the useless stuff I’ve been avoiding for months. People keep telling me I need to “move on.” I don’t think they realize those two words feel heavier than carrying the boxes themselves.

I froze when I saw it, folded neatly between a stack of winter scarves and a broken picture frame. My hands hesitated before touching it, like I was afraid it would vanish if I did. When I finally picked it up, it felt alive somehow. Like if I just waited long enough, it might start talking back to me.

I sat on the floor, the sweater in my lap, and I cried. Really cried. Not the quiet, controlled kind where you hide it behind a hand and breathe through your nose so no one notices. This was the ugly, shaking kind I haven’t let myself have in years. I don’t cry often. I’ve built my life around holding things in, acting like I’m fine, smiling when people ask. But that sweater broke me in a way I didn’t see coming.

It knows things. It knows how quiet the house is now. How the air feels different thinner since she left. It knows how much I miss her voice in the morning.

She used to sing badly while making eggs, sometimes humming a tune she’d just made up. I’d tease her about it, not in a cruel way, but just enough to make her roll her eyes and throw a dish towel at me. She’d say, “One day, you’ll miss my terrible music.” I’d laugh. She was right.

It’s strange, how absence can be so loud. I don’t know how it’s possible, but the space where she used to be makes more noise than her footsteps ever did.

The other day, I walked past the bakery she loved. I almost went in to get her favorite the cinnamon buns that looked like they’d lost a fight with the icing bucket. I stood outside for ten minutes, staring through the glass like a stranger, before walking away. Buying one for myself felt like stealing something that wasn’t mine to have anymore.

People tell me, “She’s always with you.” I know they mean well, but it’s a strange kind of comfort. Like they’re trying to wrap a bandage around something too deep to reach. It doesn’t make me feel better—it just makes the hurt softer, and somehow that’s worse.

She’s not here. Her toothbrush is still in the bathroom. Her voicemail is still on her phone. Her book is still open on chapter nine, the page bent at the corner. She was re-reading it for the third time. I can’t bring myself to close it. It feels like pressing a final period at the end of a sentence I never wanted to finish.

Sometimes I sleep on her side of the bed. Not every night—just when the cold feels like it’s coming from the inside out.

It’s strange, the details that come back to you. She used to bite her lip when she was thinking. She hated the sound of cutlery scraping on plates. She’d always cut sandwiches diagonally, even if I told her it didn’t matter. Once, we had an argument because I forgot to buy oat milk. I’d give anything to have that fight again.

Grief doesn’t walk in a straight line. It loops. It circles. It sneaks up on you while you’re buttering toast or folding laundry. It hits on a Tuesday afternoon when everything was fine five minutes ago.

Sometimes I put on her sweater. It’s too small, and the sleeves stop short at my wrists. I probably look ridiculous, but I don’t care. It’s the closest I can get to holding her. And for a few minutes, that’s enough.

I’ve started thinking maybe healing doesn’t mean forgetting. Maybe it’s just learning how to carry the ache without letting it crush you. Like background music in a café you stop noticing it until there’s a pause, and suddenly it’s all you can hear again.

Some days, the ache is faint, like a whisper you can almost ignore. Other days, it’s so loud it fills every room.

Last night, I dreamed about her. She wasn’t doing anything spectacular just sitting at the kitchen table, hair pulled back, wearing that mustard sweater. She was writing something in a notebook, tapping her pen against the paper like she always did. I asked her what she was writing. She looked up at me, smiled in that half-amused, half-tired way, and said, “Nothing important.”

When I woke up, the sweater was still draped over the chair where I’d left it. The sun was hitting it just right, making it glow like it was lit from the inside. For a second, I almost convinced myself she was in the next room.

I know I’ll never stop missing her. I don’t even think I want to. That ache—it’s proof she was real. That she mattered. That I loved her, and she loved me.

So I folded the sweater carefully and put it back in the box. Not because I’m ready to let it go. But because I want it to be there the next time I need it.

And I know there will be a next time.

Because even though the world keeps turning, even though people keep telling me to move on, there are some things you don’t move past. You just learn to live alongside them.

The ache. The sweater. The love.

They’re all the same now.

And somehow, despite everything… I’m still here. Still breathing. Still carrying her with me. Quietly. Always.

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