I have to clear out his house this month and I cannot make myself open the wardrobe. How do I do this without it feeling like erasing him?

“That this may be a sign among you, that when your children ask their fathers in time to come, saying, What mean ye by these stones? Then ye shall answer them, That the waters of Jordan were cut off before the ark of the covenant of the LORD; when it passed over Jordan, the waters of Jordan were cut off: and these stones shall be for a memorial unto the children of Israel for ever.”

After Israel crossed the Jordan, Joshua had twelve stones lifted out of the riverbed and set up on the far bank for one reason: so that when children later asked what the stones were for, somebody would tell them the story. Israel understood that memory needs physical objects attached to it. Keeping something is not clinging. It is how a community has always carried what happened to it.

“But Mary kept all these things, and pondered them in her heart.”

Luke notes that after the shepherds had gone, Mary held on to what had happened and kept turning it over. The verb suggests deliberate storing rather than idle reflection. Luke, who tells us he researched his Gospel carefully, is quietly showing you where some of it came from: a woman who kept things. Keeping is not a failure to move forward.