My mother’s slippers are still facing the bathroom

Dear Delyara, My mother died in my house three weeks ago. She had lived with me for the final eighteen months of her illness, and somehow the hardest things to move are not the medical equipment or the photographs but her slippers. They are beside the bed, facing the bathroom because that was the direction she shuffled every morning with one hand against the wall. Yesterday, my sister came over to help clear the room. She folded Mum’s clothes, packed the unopened dressings, and asked whether I wanted the slippers. I said leave them. She looked at me but did not argue. Last night, I woke at four and walked past the room half-asleep. For one second, seeing those slippers pointed toward the bathroom made me believe Mum was still in bed and would need help getting up soon. My body actually prepared itself: listen for her cough, find the cardigan, warm the bathroom first because she hated cold tiles. Then I remembered there is nobody to help anymore. Everyone told me caregiving would exhaust me. Nobody warned me that after it ends, your body continues waiting for instructions from a person who has stopped needing anything.