Yesterday I looked like other people felt.

I was in the line at Starbucks on my way to work and I felt my face harden into a look that I've noticed on people who bump their bags into your shoulder on the subway and don't acknowledge it probably because they are completely unaware of it, being overwhelmed by their own misery. Well, at least I was.

How are you feeling?
I'm overwhelmed by my own misery. How are you?

I didn't think I was, but I am. It's a fact. I'm doing something about it. I'll be over it soon enough. I'm a bit of a wallower and shouter from the mountaintops. Once I have a handle on what I'm feeling, I like everyone to know. I have a blog, don't I?

Thursday, Friday and Saturday we cleaned up Bran's stuff. He had a lot of stuff.

Thursday morning I arrived at his apartment alone with bleach and sponges and started on his bathtub. Pulled down the shower curtains and bagged them. Removed the pillow and sheet (his final indulgences) from the bathtub and bagged them. Got out the Clorox, stopped up the tub, ran hot water with the bleach and let it soak while I removed the hair and skin products from the shelves.

There's something so depressing about a bottle of hairspray with so little liquid in it that the tiny pump hose can't reach it, but you keep it anyway just in case you need it someday. The plastic bottle collects New York City grime and dust and it slips to the back of the shelf where you forget it. And you die. There was lots of that and now it's gone.

I found an entire bottle of lemon-scented SoftScrub. I emptied the tub of bleachy water and emptied the bottle of SoftScrub in the bathtub and let it sit. Then I scrubbed. Softly. Then I took out the Ajax and scrubbed violently. Pulled the trash bags out of the bathroom and it looked like a place someone might be willing to enter to wash their hands. It was a lot lighter if you know what I mean. Mary Ellen and John arrived. Then Cabot. We started on clothes and books and CD's.

We were scattering Bran's physical life.

Fifteen-to-twenty kitchen bags of shirts and pants, all sizes, some with their sizes pinned by Romey onto the leg, were to go to Goodwill. Not enough room in cars in the end. Hopefully, some neighborhood folk can use them. Books, books and books. Some of them in three's. Every Tolkien and Tolkien-related book imaginable. Three boxes of one fantasy illustrator. Now in my apartment waiting for a dealer to come and, hopefully, purchase them.

We were angry, sad and tired.

And more than a pickup truck full of rich, ornate, made-to-order costumes, cut from the most beautiful fabrics. Dale gathered them on Saturday for hours and hauled them home for inspection, inventory and shipping to one of the benefactors of Bran's will. Two surgers, threads, dyes, patterns.

In the process we made a lot of jokes.

A baritone horn, a Celtic harp, a concertina, an accordian, an electric piano, two violins, a musical saw. And shelves of music: some autographed by the composer. DVD's, Videos, CD's.

Six drawers of files, reduced to a six-inch pile for financial review.

Mary Ellen chose items that might be meaningfully gifted to family and some friends. John chose what friends might be interested in purchasing. Cabot and Melanie chose what could be sold on ebay. I chose what could be purchased by specialists found in NYC.

We got to know each other a lot more.

And two boys in the next apartment hauled down hundreds of pounds of items that simply had to leave the apartment. By 9:00 p.m. Saturday we left an apartment that was by no means clean, but clean enough. We left some electronics, some computer equipment, a good vacuum cleaner, shelves, furniture, with hopes that that would be enough for the Super to feel taken care of.

And, maybe, we received some insight into how a man who had such a strong hold on the material, the creative, the sensual, could lose his grip and end his life.