A poem to my children, twins – boy and girl – about them growing up and me deciding it was time to donate their clothes to Goodwill.  It was a tearful goodbye and cold hard reality that they weren’t babies anymore.

A tearful goodbye to your clothes and toddler bed

I woke up this morning, walked to my closet, stared at the white trash bag filled with your clothes and pulled it out into the open space of my room.

I untied the plastic orange drawstring on the bag, exposing the neatly folded clothes stacked on top of one another.

I closed up the bag and carried it to the living room.

I walked back to my room, pulled out a Disney Princess toddler bed under my bed and carried
it to the living room.

I walked back to my room one more time, pulled out a Disney Cars toddler bed from the closet and carried it to the living room.

I opened the bag filled with your baby clothes. One by one, I pulled out a Sofia the First fleece and Hello Kitty pajama sets. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle and Spongebob pajama short sets, t-shirts, skirts, unopened underwear packets, Paw Patrol and Disney socks.

I draped your clothes over the cushion on the couch, running my hand over them as if petting a dog.

I stopped, quietly stared at the images staring back at me in your shirts and a projector movie of memories began to play in my mind.

I felt a heaviness overcame me, tears welling up in my eyes and the reality of you growing up hit me.

I didn’t expect to get emotional over getting rid of your clothes, maybe that’s why I kept them tucked away in the closet for the last few years – holding onto the memory of you as babies.

In the silence of an afternoon with only the sound of the A/C blowing semi-cold wind into the humid apartment complex, I stood there looking at your clothes, trying to decide if giving them away was the right thing to do.

In the end, I packed up your clothes into my truck. And drove to the Goodwill 5 minutes away and said goodbye to your baby clothes and toddler beds.