Today is Not Forever

 I am being tested by this pandemic. Still. 20 months on. The vaccine for kids ages 5-11 is literally days away from rollout, but my daughter's school has a sizeable covid-19 outbreak. Boom, email went out Sunday night declaring remote school for the affected grade. Trick-or-treat time for me was spent obsessing over what to do.

I just... Can't keep doing this! What am I supposed to do? There is no help to call on. The "rest" of the culture seems to have moved on and I am expected in person at work. She is not very old, obviously, being ineligible for the current vaccine. I am exhausted from the mental calculus of what is acceptable and least objectionable on multiple fronts. I am burned out from living one day at a time for years now. Years of not being able to look forward to a happy future, a good future, will drag you down.

I miss the days of thinking it through with my partner.

I miss the days of passing the baton back and forth to make it work.

I miss the relief of conversation and shared looks. This is nuts but we will get through it.

This week will be hard, but it will pass. If none of us test positive, it will be but an inconvenience. The way this life goes, next week I won't even remember how stressed I was today in the face of the next challenge.

Today is not forever. That is what I need to remember in these moments of desperation.

Today is NOT forever.

Happy Like That

This past Friday was a gorgeous October day. Everyone was excited to get through classes because fall break lay ahead and the campus emptied quickly in the early afternoon. My office was summer-warm and bright as I graded quizzes in the silence, biding my time before an outdoor meet-up with an acquaintance. We had a nice talk over coffee that stretched over an hour or more. Eventually, I felt the pull of home and my thoughts drifted to worrying about who needed me there and whether I had selfishly stayed in my conversation too long.

The drive home was truly spectacular, the stuff New England is famous for – the sinking sun set off the red-orange-yellow leaves against a perfectly clear sky. In such beauty, it should have been a peaceful drive after a productive and good day. Instead, I felt a nagging despair. It worried me in its bleakness.

 It was more than being sad that Chris was gone, though that is part of it. I did wish I was going home to a long weekend of family fun as it seemed “everyone” else was doing. I longed for lighthearted banter amongst the four of us and later conversation just the two of us. My thought process cycled through remembering what I used to have and what I would face when I got home. A mess. A kitchen I would clean up alone. Paperwork and junk mail piling up. Going to bed in silence.

The long weekend hopeless feeling was like staring into a dark abyss and seeing no bottom, no way out, no path forward.

I will never be happy like I used to be. I will never be happy like that again.

Things went from bad to worse. I woke up Saturday morning in a fog, nearly paralyzed with apathy. Minutes and hours passed, but I accomplished very little as I plodded through mundane chores. Then, I turned that lethargy on myself in a barrage of negative thoughts and self-loathing. Later in the day, the tears started and wouldn’t stop. I was in a dark place, and a very snotty and swollen-faced one at that. Talk about a mess…

I will never be happy again.

As I settled down for sleep later, the aggravating cause of my despair became clear. My eyes and nose were not just irritated and running from crying; some nasty bug was hitting me hard. Feeling physically bad had triggered emotional distress before I even realized I was sick. The moment of relieved recognition that there was a reason for feeling so terrible quickly gave way to a different awful thought: I have a virus.

Oh no, what if it is that virus???

A specific worry gave my brain something to do besides despair. Well past midnight, I researched options and made my plan from my bed. I ordered a package of rapid home covid tests for pickup at my pharmacy in the morning. I could use curbside pickup and answer the question about covid with minimal exposure to other people. I would worry about my unvaccinated child once I found out, and I would figure out how to manage two weeks of isolation if needed.

It wasn’t needed. I had an old-fashioned cold, 2019 style. I’ve never been so happy to have a bad cold!

Did you catch that? I felt happy.

I laughed a little at myself. Obviously, I feel happy at times. It’s impossible to be unhappy when a 60-pound coonhound is trying to climb into your lap and wash your face while frantically wagging her tail. It’s impossible to be unhappy when your ten-year-old makes you picture after picture declaring you to be the Best Mom Ever. It’s impossible to be unhappy when your teen is making leaps forward intellectually, socially, and emotionally.  I do indeed have some happiness in every day. Sometimes I am even overtly happy.

Still, I had not been completely wrong. Chris is gone and he cannot come back, so I will not be happy like that again. The feeling I had when we were together cannot be replicated. It was special, and it is over. It turns my insides quivery with panic again to write that truth and lean into it.

There is peace to be found in the other truth, though. I can be happy again.

It just won’t ever be happy like that again.

 

Orders of Magnitude

 

Tomorrow marks one thousand days since Chris died.

Something about that feels momentous. Quadruple digits, if that’s even a thing people say.

It’s been too long. Too much has happened that he has not seen, heard, or experienced in any way. I don’t look for his car to be in the driveway anymore as I return from work. I have lost the inclination to message him. I do not expect him to be at the dinner table nor to help me or the kids in any practical way.

It is not a month mark, nor the date of another year passing by.

Oh yes, this is yet a different time when I compare to earlier experiences. It is tempting to fit the data to a mathematical model - one thousand days is a milestone marking a length of time described by an entirely new order of magnitude.

Zeroth Order, 10⁰ = 1

The first day is a land of its own, the true epicenter from which all else will eventually ripple outward. Day one is such a shock you don’t quite know what happened. He was alive last night and now he is not. His things were packed up from the hospice house and are in a bag on your bedroom floor. It makes no sense. You make calls, take calls, write a list of calls to eventually place. You go to bed alone and it doesn’t feel quite right, but it definitely doesn’t seem real or permanent.

So the zeroth order plays out incrementally, day by near-endless day. Guests. Calls. Plans. Food. Flowers. People look to you and you must make decisions, immediately. You are propelled with the urge to honor him.

As the order comes to a close, you have little idea about what is in store, though you begin to stare out the window in confusion, take a few walks alone and just barely start to comprehend what “died” means.

First Order, 10¹ = 10

The days are counted in double digits. The service is over. Your home is cleared of medical equipment, prescriptions, papers are filed away.

People go home and back to their lives, but you do not get yours back. He does not come home. The tears that didn’t really come cannot be stopped. The pain is unbelievable.

Days tick on through double digits and you try to keep going, but you don’t know how. You are a stranger in your own home, an alien in the shell of your old life.

The first order is nearly indescribable in its horror.

Second Order, 10² = 100 

In days counted by triple digits, he’s been gone a little while, but it is still so fresh. You have survived a few firsts without him, but now you slog through that first year. It is very, very hard.

The triple digit days feature one season changing into the next, holiday following holiday, one year turning into two. The kids grow and need new shoes, new clothes, then they go to new schools. They are smart and funny, thriving even, but they miss him. There is not enough of you to go around for hugs, games of catch, homework help, and cheering section. Even if you could do it all, they need him anyway. All of you begin to know it in your bones that he is not coming back.

You begin to manage.

In the waning days of this order, people don’t understand. They are surprised by your sadness. They think you should be over it or assume you are back to normal, not comprehending that there was no normal left to return to. You are a different person with a different life, but never asked for that.

Third Order, 10³ = 1000

You make all the decisions alone, and while it is good to feel more comfortable with that, it lacks joy. You see that life stretches ahead and it would be a shame to waste it only looking back. The real work is making something of what is left because he is not coming back. He is simply not coming back.

This order is long, 1000-9999 days. It will encompass more than two decades. You could easily die in this order of magnitude. Or, you might be in your late sixties as it nears the next order.

I worry about this order. If I do that hard work and build a new life for myself, will it ever be as good? And if it were, would I lose him completely?

At the end of this order of magnitude, will I still be able to hear his voice in my head? Will I remember our life together? Will I feel connected to him?

It seems the task of the days ahead is to let go a bit to be able to live more fully. I really don’t want to.

In the end…

Perhaps the mathematical model doesn’t fit. It was a decent experiment, but the R² value was poor. In other words, day 1000 does not have to be a milestone marking an unwelcome phase. The experience of loss is not linear, nor logarithmic. I can look all I want for patterns, analogies, and sense, but the truth is that the thousandth day is just one more day in a long line of days without Chris. My feelings will be up and down, here and there and back again.

I miss him, and that’s okay.

I am trying hard to do new things and meet new people even while I look back longingly.

I can call up his voice in my head and feel his support even as I forge my singular path onward.

I survived 999 days before today. I will do it again today, and then I will wake up and do it again tomorrow.

 

 

 

 

Anniversary Reflections: The Two Sentences Left Out

 July 31, 2021 was a Saturday, just like it was in 2004. Alone, I marked 17 years since I was married. It was a hard day trying to act normal while feeling hurt-angry, like a wounded animal. Although I do not believe that Chris can hear my thoughts or read my words, it occasionally helps to address him directly. Sometimes I simply plead for him to come back or to help me. Other times I have more to say or feel he deserves better from me, like that milestone day which has taken some time to process.

…

If I were a better person, maybe today would have been one of gratitude for the love we shared, for re-reading our vows and looking at pictures with thanks running through my head. I’m not, so I didn’t do those things…

The pictures hurt too much to look at. In fact, I removed our wedding picture from the mantle long ago because it became confusing to see our young, happy faces in the photo while the me in the mirror ages alone, muddles through alone. It was not helpful to my daily life without you to see us smiling from atop the fireplace, so I replaced it with a family picture.

Though I do not have them memorized, I don’t need to read the words we said during our wedding because the essence of them is indelibly imprinted on my mind. We both put our unique spin on the traditional words, and I know we both meant those promises. We lived them fully and deeply, and I am proud of us every day.

Today I couldn’t bring myself to conjure those memories. Instead, I was focused on the two sentences that were left out from the vows. The sentences that we didn’t know on our wedding day, that were handed down soon after with a terrible cruelty.

Yours, of course, was the death sentence. Nobody could see it on our wedding day, but the tumor was probably already there extending its tendrils through your brilliant brain, penning the prologue to your untimely demise. It was later revealed that you would be required to loosen your grip on everything you loved, including me, and die before you were finished.

For some reason that defies logic, or more accurately for no reason at all, I got life. There was no way to know it back then, but mine was a life sentence of living without you.

These sentences were not about delivering justice; rather biology and neuroscience blindly dealt them to us - death for you and life for me (for now).

…

I am not serving out my life sentence gracefully, Chris. I miss you with a ferocity that alarms me. The bottomless pit of sadness scares me more. Quite simply, I struggle. I wish you could help me with this as inane as that sounds.

Often, I wonder what I could have done differently and better throughout our marriage. I go down the rabbit hole of wondering if I was actually good enough for you and whether most people think the better person died. I know that I should have worried less and had more fun in too many moments. As you faced down your death sentence, I should have been less afraid to cross a line and instead asked more questions about what you were feeling, to give you more chances to talk. I am not sure if I “should” have sought your counsel about my life sentence, but I wish I had not avoided discussing it with you. We did talk some, but I held back because I was worried about hurting you with my worries about my future life, which you did not have.

…

As guests have once again come to our house after so many months of isolation, I recently landed in proximity to the marriages of others and glimpsed the periphery of their private worlds. I was reminded how a marriage gives an individual support, lends counsel, provides a respite. A few times this called some of our own magic to mind, but the relief of that ephemeral sense was immediately followed by the punch that the magic is just a memory now. Similarly, I allowed myself to wear my rings for a few hours today. They slid on perfectly and looked simple and beautiful, as they always did. I felt both immensely relieved and like an incredible fraud, so I removed them before anyone else noticed.

You were my counsel, Chris. I always looked to you, relied on you, and you never once disappointed me.

You were my delight. I laughed freely when you were animated. I was proud of your accomplishments and more so of the way you treated people and moved in the world.

You were my comfort. In you, I found true respite - I could draw a deep breath and let it all the way out. When we were together, everything felt okay even when it most certainly was not.

You were my love.

You are not here anymore.

…

It feels like someone dropped a neat spool of thread the day you died and it has been haphazardly rolling away ever since. Now there is so much thread strewn on the floor, bunched up and tangled, that it would be impossible to straighten the length out and wind it neatly to get back that perfect spool of life with you.

Similarly, I have thought about what is left of you, tucked away in my dresser. My brain understands that I could never reconstitute you by adding water to the small box containing your ash and bone bits.

The futility of that imagery forces me to see that it’s impossible to go back.

My heart desperately still wants to.

…

This is my life sentence: I missed you terribly yesterday, I woke up today aching from missing you, and I will miss you just as much tomorrow.

It hurts so much because we loved each other so completely. I think you knew that I loved you then, and I wish you could know that I love you now and will love you until my own time comes. Despite my pain, this is the greatest privilege of my life and I want you to know that.

You served your sentence magnificently, Chris. I will forever be in awe of your bravery, gentleness, and your focus on love as you moved toward the moment of your death.

Thank you for everything.

I love you.

 

Constant Juggling and Missing Him

An ocean churns in my mind, every single day. I come here to document it when I can, because it helps. It is sometimes a good thing when I don't write because I'm in a good place, but sometimes I'm in a bad place and avoid doing helpful things... Time to jot a few things down.

...

 I'm tired tonight. I feel one hundred years old. I wake most mornings thinking of Chris and pondering this less-than life, wondering what the hell happened and what it all means. I struggle with this late pandemic existence, trying to forge meaning or at least beat back apathy when there are still so many limitations and necessary precautions to take.

I miss him. 

How many ways can I say that?

How long will that be the undercurrent of my consciousness? 

What will it mean when I am not crying that I miss him with every cell of my being? Will that ever happen, anyway?

...

I messed up tonight. Nothing major. It just broke my spirit a little. I had shuttled kids around to different locations and was finally relaxing at a game, feeling a bit smug because from my chair I had ordered Thai takeout from a new-to-us place on the route home. As the game dragged on, I realized that I should check the restaurant's hours. Shoot. It was 8:15, top of the 6th with home team still needing to bat, and this place closed at 8:30. Shoot shoot shoot.

I decided to leave the game to pick up the food and come back for the child. I hoped I could make it back for the end of the game, but still I messaged the coach regarding my whereabouts, feeling like an idiot. Of course, the game was called for darkness as I was several minutes away. In the end kiddo only waited a few minutes and survived just fine. The food was not wasted. It was okay. But, I HATE this. I absolutely HATE this life of constant juggling, needing help, being out of control, feeling like a loser. 

...

The worst is feeling guilty for hating this. Chris would be here if he had any choice in the matter. Why can't I have a better attitude? 

It is time to go to bed. He always advised me to do so when I was in such moods. Everything is worse when you're tired. My husband was always wise and full of compassion for me. I will try to channel it now to show myself.

Replace in Ten Years

 

When Chris and I were house hunting in our happy year of 2007, we chose an area that would split the difference between our two work locations. We looked at a handful of properties in this unfamiliar region, but not one of those houses was quite right until the last, of course. When we toured the house that is now our home, we saw that the kitchen wasn’t ideal in its style and  having only one drawer, and that storage space was lacking in the house in general. Still, the house had no red flags like the others we had seen, and it checked every one of our non-negotiable boxes. We exchanged a lot of looks on that tour telegraphing our mutual interest.

We went straight from the showing to grab pizza, just the two of us, and talked it over. Though excited, I had general misgivings over such a large decision. Chris was sure we were ready and, as usual, I trusted his judgment completely. We took the leap and made an offer. There was a little negotiation that Saturday afternoon and somewhere in the middle of that, a few questions were answered between the real estate agents. The homeowners wanted us to know that they found the attic quite useful for storage if we hadn’t checked it out (we had not). During the inspection process, Chris explored the attic and reported that it would indeed assuage the storage deficiencies in the main living areas of the house. The attic became his domain from that day on.  

Oh, Chris was a natural organizer. He measured the trapdoor and the width of the ladder steps, then purchased a dozen or more sturdy plastic storage boxes that could be boosted up and stowed in the attic. We used those boxes first to move, then to store holiday decorations and off-season clothes, and later baby equipment and clothes that we might use later. Every box was neatly labeled in his handwriting and stored tidily in the attic. My role was supportive. I would pack some of the boxes, bring them to the ladder steps, and hoist them up to Chris who would busily tuck them away according to his system. When holidays rolled around, he would climb the ladder and find the relevant boxes to hand down to me. We were a good team…

As we headed into what we knew would be the last Christmas holiday season for Chris, many things quickly changed and became painfully different. He could not climb the ladder to root out the boxes of decorations. As I did that fall with so many things that had typically fallen under his domain or ours, I tackled the task alone, as robotically and quickly as possible. The less time I spent doing it, the less time I would be thinking about how horrifying it was that he could not do it himself, and how sickening it was to know that he would not be here at this time next year.

After Chris died, I dreaded going into the attic. Eventually I would have to do it and I did, just like everything else in the after. On those occasions, I would climb the steps, flip the light on, and stare at our old life all boxed up. The still, stale air of the attic would instantly feel suffocating as my eyes would settle on one label after another, his handwriting as familiar as my own. I would have to remember to breathe as I looked around at the artifacts of our shared, now past life. Vivid memories relentlessly rushed over me and clashed with the harsh reality that he is dead. There was no sense to be made in the attic.

How can someone’s belongings, even someone’s simply written sticky notes, still be here while he is not?

What. The. Hell. Happened.

Time has passed and, just like many other things, it has become easier to go into the attic. Not easy. But noticeably easier.

Many months ago now, we heard an intermittent electronic beeping from the attic. I knew exactly what it was - the smoke alarm battery was dying and the unit needed to be replaced. I knew this because as one climbs the ladder and enters the attic, you directly face an overhead beam to which the alarm is affixed. Chris being Chris, he had also typed and mounted an accompanying reminder that read, “Replace by April 2021.” The alarm was expected to last ten years. It was just a few months shy of that.

Every time I went into the attic, I read the instructions about the alarm replacement. Those simple words always gave me pause. What was Chris thinking when he made that note? It must have been the spring of 2011, a few years into his brain tumor experience for which he had accepted his prognosis of 10-20 years. As he read about the ten-year battery expectancy, did he do the comparison math? As he drilled the holes for the mounting bracket, did he wonder if he would still be alive when the new alarm expired? I know he was optimistic and hoped to be on the 20-year side of the prognosis, but how often did he worry or even assume he’d be closer to the 10-year side of things? Did he have a premonition that he would not be the one to make the next replacement and that note was meant for me, to help me take care of the family in the after?

There is absolutely no way Chris did not contemplate whether he’d be alive in ten years as he taped his note next to the new alarm. He told me once during the good years of tumor inactivity that he thought about dying every single day, how it would play out and when. On the day he typed that replacement reminder in the spring of 2011, our second baby had only been a few weeks old. The choice to have a second child while also having a terminal brain tumor had been weighty, truly monumental for him. Would he live long enough for this new child to know him, to form lasting memories of him? Our newborn would be ten when the alarm replacement date rolled around. Chris must have wondered, Will I be here in April, 2021?

Funny how time marches on, whether we humans are here or not. Chris was on the shorter end of the prognosis, dying eleven years after his diagnosis. The smoke alarm he put up in 2011 lasted longer than he did…

Though I did purchase a new detector in a timely manner, I dragged my feet about installing it.  The new alarm sat on the kitchen counter for a long time. I simply did not want to face the attic for this task. I didn’t want to take down the note Chris left, and I didn’t want to throw it away once I did. Most of all, I didn’t want to think about the pain Chris must have felt facing his own mortality on the day he replaced the last detector and on so many, many days between his diagnosis and death.

Eventually I did fetch the required tools and climbed the ladder to the attic, new alarm in hand. I took a minute to think about Chris before starting. In my head, I talked to him a bit as I often do. There were some tears as I told him how much I miss him, how much I love him. I apologized for not asking him more questions about what he grappled with, for sometimes not being receptive to his need to talk about his inevitable disease progression before it happened because of my fear of losing him. But mostly I thanked him for being such a good partner, for taking excellent care of us, for leading with kindness and gentleness in all situations, for being so incredibly brave, and for agreeing to add our second child to our family when he knew he would not be here to see her to adulthood.    

Then, I tackled the job. I removed the old alarm and saw that the mounting bracket would not work for the new one, so I unscrewed that as well. I’ve learned to enjoy using power tools, and took satisfaction in drilling two new holes and screwing in the new bracket. Once the alarm was installed, I knew what the last step was. Using permanent marker, I wrote on the alarm cover, “Replace Fall 2030.”

As I wrote the year 2030, that year felt impossibly distant. I did the easy math; I would be turning 53 years old in the fall of 2030. My mind raced ahead with the calculations and I realized that the kids will both be launched into adulthood by that time and will not likely be living in the house year-round. I wondered if I would be living in this house in that year, and if I would still have the same job, and if my hair would be white. Then, my thoughts turned more serious. Will my parents still be alive? I shuddered with the pain of losing them someday… Will I still be alone, unpartnered? And finally, of course…

Will I still be alive in ten years?

I blanched at these thoughts. I do not feel strong enough to bear another major loss. And, much as I sometimes do not want to keep on going, I honestly do not want to die any time soon. What would the kids do if they did not have a parent for most of their lives?

I don’t know the answers or solutions to any of these musings. The only certainty is that we all must die someday, not one of us can know the day or the hour…

With no other resolution to be found, I leaned back to inspect my work. The detector was firmly attached. My instructions, though not as neat as the typed note Chris had left, would let the future homeowner, whomever that may be, know when to replace the detector to keep the residents safe.

 

 

A Dream

 

Those moments when sleep is giving way to wakefulness can be strange. As the dream world starts to mix with the conscious world, bizarre and vivid scenes occupy the mind in a way that deep sleep prohibits or at least prevents the brain from remembering later in an awake state. That in-between sleep time gives a tiny window into the inner workings of the mind and it gives images that stick, for better or worse.

I do not often remember dreaming of Chris. I wonder if that means I do not often dream of him, or if I simply am not in the right stage of sleep to form memories of the dreams. It doesn’t matter. He is not here to know one way or another, and I can’t control it, anyway. Still, I feel a bit uncomfortable that Chris is not there even in my dreams.

One recent morning, though, I had the rare experience of a dream of him that I remembered with clarity. Just as I was becoming aware of my bedroom lightening around me and the birds beginning their early chattering, my awareness stayed engaged with the last dream of the night. Only a snippet of the dream remained in my conscious mind, but the fragment stayed with me for days. Though it was crystal clear, it will be impossible to adequately describe because there were no words and no real events - it was just the strong sense of being with Chris, simply together as we always used to be, punctuated by his unique human sound of clearing his throat. He jokingly used to call this sound “the animal” since he was plagued by allergies and often needed to clear congestion.

That’s it. A nebulous sense of being together and the infamous sound of the animal.

Funny how what amounts to a minute at most of a dream could take up hours of time in the next several days. My conscious mind turned that experience over and over, examining and questioning it from different angles. As usual, those thoughts elicited many different feelings.

First, relief. I did not make up how it felt to be with Chris! He loved me and I loved him, and we did indeed have that rich life together.

Second, sadness. I would like to go back to sleep and return to that moment of his presence. I desperately want to feel his love again, but there is no going back.

Third, anger. This is all I get? How is this enough? I guess I am supposed to be satisfied with the crumbs of a dream including the sound of my husband’s throat-clearing when most people I know get to live with their spouse who is living, breathing, talking, comforting and on and on.

Fourth, the relentless questions without satisfying answers.

Why didn’t he say anything? What am I doing something wrong that I don’t dream of him more often? Is this what you’d call a sign from him? What does it all mean?

It’s all rather exhausting, this constant ruminating, analyzing, over-thinking…

Perhaps the most important, constructive thing to do is to look to the initial reaction of my less complicated sleeping self. Yes, my semi-conscious mind experienced that moment in the best possible way, for when I felt the dream presence of Chris and heard his animal, I simply smiled.

 

Like A Phoenix (redux)

 The ache is still acute sometimes. I feel it in the quiet after dinner when I’m left to put away the food and clean the kitchen without company. I feel it late every night when the silence of the house settles in and I get ready for sleep, staring at the empty, flat side of the bed.

I still spend a fair amount of time looking back. Chris is on my mind every day still. It is not an exaggeration to say that nearly every waking hour I have thoughts and memories of him. There is still a lot of pining for my old life, what I fight myself to not consider my real life. After all, if my real life is over, and that life is indeed over, where does that leave me now? Am I not alive anymore? Is this my fake life? It doesn’t feel entirely comfortable yet and certainly not one of my choosing, that is for sure...

What am I supposed to do now? What should I do with these days right now? The pressure to make something of my time weighs on me.

As usual, my Phoenix helpfully reminds me to stay in the here and now. She frequently demands my attention as dogs do, and I credit her for saving me many times over from fretting over my purpose and the future.

I learn from Phoenix when I pay attention. Once, I literally saw how sustained looking back doesn’t serve her well. We were on a walk and she became distracted by a group of people behind us. Phoenix could not be dissuaded from watching the walkers and her neck craned to look over her shoulder in curiosity. As she walked forward with her head turned back, she smacked directly into our neighbor’s car. The kids and I laughed once we confirmed that she was just fine, but I filed this moment away as it held an important lesson for me…

That dog. She is funny. She is a live wire of enthusiasm and energy, eager to protect our home and her yard. One morning she leapt off my bed before 6:00 to howl wildly at a large turkey strolling across our street directly in front of her living room couch lookout. She quivered with excitement and her voice cracked mid-howl as that tom spread his magnificent feathers as if to taunt her. Later that same day, Phoenix and I were playing fetch when a hawk flew overhead. She immediately tensed her muscles, looked skyward, and let loose a howl that was only slightly distorted by the tennis ball still in her mouth. In the dead of night, she wakes me with her doggie nightmares accentuated by whining, shaking, and mini howls. During the day, when I would sometimes like to work uninterrupted, Phoenix assertively pushes her snout under my arm so I cannot type. Often, she will then put her front paws on my lap and further escalate the interaction by moving her paws up to my shoulders so I am forced to turn away from the computer for a full body hug and slobbery kisses.

Phoenix can also be mellow, enjoying afternoons curled tightly into a ball of sweetness next to one of her people. She anticipates bedtime and chooses a person to snuggle for the night, and if it had not been me, she often “asks” for me from a kid’s room hours later.

Last night the other side of my bed was not unoccupied. My daughter was settled into Chris’s old spot with a cadre of stuffed animals. She still finds it a treat to sleep with me and when she asked on a vacation night, I readily agreed because I know these days are numbered. It was a regular girl’s night with that 65-pound coonhound mix cuddled between us. It was every bit as crowded and cozy as you might imagine, with the dog and girl alternately resting directly on me as they both took deep and slow sleep breaths.

In the wee hours, I woke and couldn’t get back to sleep immediately. Phoenix was still right up by our heads, so I stroked her silky ears a while. In her sleepy state, she rolled on her back for a belly rub; I could see her long legs sticking up ridiculously as I petted her tummy and chest. Eventually she tired of my attention and stood up, did her signature full body shake, then strode to the end of the bed for more room and privacy. She began that animal routine of turning around several times before lying down. She paused unexpectedly in her circling. Just as my brain was forming the question of why, Phoenix burped loudly. She then circled once more, harrumphed as she flopped down onto the bed, and nudged me even closer to the edge.

I shook my head in the dark and laughed.

No, this is certainly not the life I had and loved.

This is the life I have now, and it is full of many good moments and much love.

Like a phoenix, I am rising from the ashes. There is no other option but to take steps forward and make a new life, bit by bit. I am doing it.

 

I Am Enough, I Choose Me

 

For the better part of two decades I’ve worn a pair of sapphire studs in the piercings closest to my head. Next to those, I wore a smaller, cheaper set of zirconium studs. Walking farther out on my earlobes, I used to have a third set of matched piercings and a fourth on the left side, the tiniest signals that I was a normal teenager determined to rebel in some small way. Once I had a tenure-track job, I let holes #5-7 close and stuck with the two evenly matched pairs of studs. I thought the look suited me and my plain style, and it was convenient to rarely change my earrings.

The sapphire earrings matched my engagement ring, chosen with Chris in the fall of 2003. What a happy day that was, wandering through Boston jewelry stores feeling like the happiest fishes out of water. We only had eyes for each other and our future. I was drawn to a ring with a plain white gold setting featuring a central oval sapphire with small diamonds flanking it. It was pretty – the blue was my color – yet not pretentious. He later returned to choose this ring from a few we liked and gave it to me weeks later, upon my return from spending Christmas with my family. A few months after that, Chris covertly selected the sapphire studs and presented them to me to commemorate our wedding.

Unfortunately, I lost one of the earrings not long afterwards as I was waiting for the train in the Kendall T station. It was the winter after our wedding; we had been bundled up for a cold walk from lab but then were sweating as we waited on the overheated platform for the train, which was late. I remember removing my winter hat and feeling the earring tear away from the backing, knowing with sickening certainty that it landed down by the rails. I saved the remaining lone stud for years. It was later fashioned into a charm for a family necklace my mother commissioned for me – the main pendant is a silver bar with the names of my children, Chris, and me engraved, one name on each of the four sides.

A few years after this debacle, my dear friend invited me to be a bridesmaid in their wedding party. The dresses were chosen individually, each a blue color; I selected a royal blue satin dress. It was a wonderful wedding – so full of happiness and love. As a token of their appreciation, the couple gave the bridesmaids earrings, mine a pair of sapphire studs. How delightful for me that this commemorative gift was so similar to my own wedding gift from Chris! Placing those studs in my ears felt right, and I rarely removed them in the decade plus that has passed.

Once, I lost a stud for a few weeks. It eventually turned up on a tiny ledge of my bed, the random surface formed by an uneven placement of the top mattress on the box spring. I remember my relief at snapping the earring back in its rightful location. Sadly, I lost one of the earrings again a few weeks ago. Despite my valiant efforts, it has not been recovered. So here I am, stuck with my cheapo zirconium studs and nothing classy to wear next to them.

Does it even matter? Perhaps my ears should be stripped of jewelry. After all, I no longer wear my beloved rings. After I removed my rings from my finger, I added our wedding rings to that family necklace and wore it religiously for a long time. Then the chain began to tarnish and leave marks on my neck, and I couldn’t keep up with polishing it. Halfheartedly, I researched a replacement chain but abandoned the search without a purchase. I ended up retiring that family necklace alongside my engagement ring in its original gift box, now yellowing with age (how can that be…).

Just like the tarnished chain and the yellowing box, I am also showing my age. My unadorned hands look plain and old. My hair has quite a bit of white coming in – I like to think it’s from the stress, but perhaps it would be my genetic destiny regardless of circumstances. I’m no spring chicken, and certainly not a fancy nor fashionable one. Perhaps the season of sentimental, pretty jewelry is over for me.

And yet.

And. Yet.

I am still here.

I am still breathing, still trying to move forward, still striving for connection, still living.

And, as a living, somewhat normal person, I miss those studs. They were perfect when Chris gave them to me, then the other pair was perfect when my friend gave them to me. There were different meanings behind the gifts, but both were heartfelt, thoughtful, and they suited me.

Do I not get to have nice things because I do not have a husband or another man in my life?

Am I not enough on my own, just as I am, to deserve a pair of nice earrings?

Goshdarnit I am enough.

I am deserving, especially after this incredible load of crap thrown my way followed by a pandemic, making me more alone than ever.

(What’s that quote? Oh yes. Stuart Smalley aka Al Franken. “I’m good enough, I’m smart enough, and doggone it, people like me.”)

There is nobody left to know me in the way Chris did, to quietly notice the things I like or need and surprise me with them. No flowers. No upgraded tech. No respite care in the form of takeout arranged when I’m tired, preparation of kids’ lunches, or cleaning of the kitchen. It’s all entirely up to me, and the responsibility of running the house and family weighs on me. I don’t particularly enjoy it; I am too often stressed by it.

It’s up to me, though, to eek enjoyment out of life. What a waste it would be if I just suffered through the rest of my days…

So, I searched for sapphire studs in the covid way - online. This would not be a break-the-bank purchase; it’s a gift to myself slightly nicer than junk jewelry that won’t make anyone in my town jealous. It is not because I need the earrings as a connection to the past. Yes, that is nice, but they looked good on me. They did indeed suit me and my lifestyle. I thoroughly enjoyed those earrings and I want a new pair. The only thing preventing me from having them is choosing to prioritize me, to opt to spoil myself, to recognize that I am enough, just as I am.

I do not need a man or anyone else to give me jewelry.

I chose me and ordered the sapphire earrings.

I am enough.

I choose me.

 

Twin Invasive Vines

Much of our property is rather wild and unwanted plants routinely encroach on the cleared yard. Years ago, Chris built a stone wall to define the perimeter of the backyard. With help, I later installed a makeshift fence to allow the dog a space to safely run and play. The yard itself needs serious rehabilitation - the grass is thin and of poor quality, weeds easily take over, and there are large patches of dirt in the dog run. Still, we love the yard and use it hard. The area beyond the barrier is woodsy and fully controlled by invasive plants: poison ivy, poison oak, thorny bushes, and woody vines that climb up trees. In the spring, as the earth warms and plants wake up, these nuisances are first to grow and hardest to remove. They thrive on the metal mesh fence and eagerly reach over to poke us.

I started clearing behind the fence early this spring to get ahead, but it is a tough battle. No matter how many vines and stalks I clip back, there seem to be just as many a few days later. If I let my guard down, pesky, sharp thorns dig in wherever they can get a hold. My approach this year is slow and steady, a few hours of work each weekend. As I carry out this work alone, nagging lines of thought bubble below my consciousness. I notice two themes, like twin invasive plants threatening to choke off healthy processing and growth. If I allow them to run rampant like the thorny vines, they can ruin an hour, a whole day, much of a week, or more.

…

The Poisonous Vine of the Past

I didn’t know what to do.

How was I supposed to know what to do?

It was unbelievable and terrifying; there was no script.

Why didn’t I ask more questions?

I didn’t even know what to ask.

Why didn’t I hire more help?

I didn’t know what was needed or available or how to get it anyway.

Why wasn’t I more loving?

I was horrified, scared, in disbelief, stressed, paralyzed.

Why did I leave?

I should have been there for that whole day, laid down in that hospital bed for every possible moment.

How was I supposed to know the end was imminent?

I should have known; it seems so obvious now.

 

…Wrapped Around Healthy Wood of the Past

What was I supposed to do, anyway, about any of it?

Nobody can know what to do in these situations. There is no map. You do the best you can.

I did the best I can.  

 

AND

 

The Invasive Weed of the Present

I don’t know what to do with my life.

How can I move forward in a meaningful way?

I don’t know how to take care of our house.

How do people know what needs to be maintained?

I don’t know what will make this okay for our children.

Are they okay? Will they be okay?

I don’t know how to redeem our story.

What possible good could come out of what happened?

I don’t know how to be unworried.

What am I not preventing that will go wrong next?

I don’t know how to be happy.

How can I ever feel joy again?

I do not have any idea what to do.

 

…Threatens New Growth

What am I supposed to do now?

Nobody can possibly know what to do in these situations.

You chart your own path. You do the best you can.

I am doing the best I can.  

I will keep going.

…

 

Just as I do in my yard, I will be vigilant about the intrusive thoughts. I’ll carefully cut away those thorny plants to avoid piercing my skin. Once severed from the root, I will let the weeds wither where they were once gaining strength. Later, I will gingerly pull the dead unwanted vines away from the healthy supports. They will grow back, sometimes even with a vengeance, but I’ll remove them again as needed. The growth beyond the fence will become junglelike as summer sets in, but I won’t let the poisonous stuff gain a foothold in the yard, my imperfect oasis.

The lesson I am learning is this - peace and healthy growth do not naturally prevail. They must be cultivated and consistently tended. The work feels endless. It is difficult and painful, and I often don’t feel like doing it. When I let up and allow the poisonous stuff to grow out of control, it creates a thorny minefield that is even harder to clear out. I am recognizing that it is my most important job to tend to my pain, to grapple with the thorns, to be as gentle with and encouraging of myself as I would with a friend. I am trying to do this work.

I am doing the best I can.    

Unconditional Love

Love seems to come from some innate place, one that is not controlled by rational choice. Sure, the beginning of most loving relationships is usually initiated by a conscious decision excepting perhaps a child’s love for a parent, but as it grows, love becomes instinctual, intuitive, involuntary. A force of its own.

Does that mean humans don’t distort love, misuse or even abuse it? No, of course not. There will always be the dark side of humanity. But the best of our human capacity to love is when we offer it benevolently and even unconditionally.

For a long while I thought unconditional love was reserved for parents, responsible for bringing their children into the world in the first place. At this point, I have been a parent for a long time and I have experienced how intense the love for one’s child is, right from the start. The feeling of your newborn transferred into your arms - all slippery and awkward and loud - oh, HERE you are, little love. I would do anything for you.

But it’s not all roses from there, is it? I know firsthand that unconditional love for children is a real thing, but not one that is easy. When your child struggles in any way, you want to fix the problem and the awful truth is that some things are not fixable by another person or, in some cases, at all. Further, this kind of love involves being the bad guy, the punching bag, and still giving another chance to hit the reset button. Still, I love those kids with all of my heart in a way that they can’t understand, for no child can truly grasp the specific and vast nature of her parents’ love.

I think quite a bit about how Chris included a promise to love me unconditionally in his wedding vows. When he shared them with me at age 26, it made a big impression and gave me pause. Did I really deserve unconditional from Chris? After all, I have many flaws… 

Colby, that line of thinking was missing the point completely! Unconditional love means the beloved does not need to deserve or earn it, or for it to be deemed fair. Remember the “un” in unconditional…

Fast forward to now, the present time in which I feel approximately one hundred years old after everything that happened. Through all of his burdens and challenges, Chris was faithful to everything he promised on our wedding day. He did indeed love me unconditionally. We rarely argued, but when we had our moments, he always saw the good in me and offered me his best self. He was shiningly proud of me and my accomplishments that were separate from him. He always believed in me.

For my part, I loved him back just as unconditionally. It doesn’t mean I knew what to do all of the time. It means I was proud of him, enjoyed him, supported him, laughed with him, listened to what he needed to say. In the hardest of times, I honored him as a person with dignity, and fought for his care and wishes. I loved him to my core, and I still do.

Even though I still have desperately difficult days when it is hard to set aside the hollowed out missingness to dwell in gratitude for Chris, I do not claim that his love is gone from my life. It is still here. I just have to work to get out of my own way to find it now without his physical presence. I am learning to listen for it in my memories, to see it in my home, to feel it when I need him the most.

Yes, I can still draw on that love even though he is not here. It allows me to forgive myself as I remember the mistakes and my regrets from the late stages of his illness, for there was not one single thing I ever did that Chris did not forgive. His gentle, steady love is still with me now as I explore and create new things, as I guide our children alone, as I struggle and stumble and wonder what on earth to do with my life. His love is very much here as I continue to muddle through, now two years past having him at my side.

Reflecting tonight as I wipe away tears from missing him, I am humbled that my life is full of rich relationships and love. Chris, our children, my family, his family, my dear friends old and new… I have so much love in my life.

Additionally, I have shared a special kind of unconditional love for two years now. Some might find it silly, but my pup Phoenix loves me with incredible abandon. Even after I’ve driven her to hide under the table because I raised my voice, even after I have chased her down and lifted her into the bathtub to wash her. She loves overtly and enthusiastically, with whole-body wags, up on hind legs hugs, and exuberant, persistent doggy kisses. She prefers to sleep with me for the duration of the night, and sometimes resting next to me is not close enough - she must sleep with her head and neck draped over me. Funny enough, even considering her tendency to hog the bed, her sensitive stomach, that awful howling, and her terrible jumping habit, I love her back just as unconditionally. There is nothing she can do that I won’t excuse just for the chance to scratch behind her silky ears and draw her slender head to mine… The absence of a shared spoken language heightens every nonverbal interaction. This love is a luxurious love, and a pure one. She has saved me in so many ways.

There is so much love in my life, offered and given unconditionally. How lucky I am. All is not lost, far from it.

Unplugged

Yesterday was a typical March day, warmish and light past dinnertime, yet a cold wind made the air feel more like winter than spring. I needed a run. Desperately. Quarantine, lockdown, whatever we are calling these days one year into covid19, has made me restless. I spend too much time in my home and in my mind, tortured by the “would’ve-could’ve-should’ve-if only-he was sitting right there-he said this-why didn’t I say that” thoughts that are always running somewhere in the background. Physical activity is my only reliable strategy for reframing, for relief.

I set off, purposefully leaving my phone charging at my bedside. I wanted to deny myself the distractions I so often seek – music, podcast, any auditory stimuli – and silently breathe in the air while moving my body. I wanted to hear the birds proclaiming change is on the way.

It was infinitely harder to be unplugged…

My route starts out on my street, running past a dozen houses before hitting a busier street that leads to longer loop. Unplugged, there are landmines within thirty seconds, even before the intersection with the main road. That nice family up the street, two working parents with a kindergartener girl and a younger boy, is converging at their home base after a day of separation. The father has been playing with the kids, the mom arrives home with grocery bags. My throat constricts as the dad watchfully ensures that the toddler boy stays a safe distance from her vehicle as she slows to a stop. The unabandoned joy of the girl running to meet her mother’s car touches a nerve. The domestic, everyday simplicity is familiar and beautiful, but it breaks my heart.

Why? Why are those days over for us? What did we do wrong? They aren’t so different from us, what did they do right that we messed up?

Running with a mask is uncomfortable under the best of circumstances, but a crying jag made it unbearable. I felt like I might not be able to continue as I gasped for oxygenated air and wiped snot on the inside of my mask.  

I focused on breathing slowly, trying to make my exhale longer than my inhale, a trick I have heard will steady one’s heartrate. It didn’t work. I felt like I might suffocate, so I looked around. Seeing nobody else walking or running, I lowered my mask below my nose and mouth.

Sweet freedom.

I steadied my breathing. I looked up. I saw barren tree branches against the clearest of clear blue skies. The intake air caught in my throat again as I remembered Chris’s hope for me, for all of us, articulated by Dar Williams:

Here’s wishing you the bluest sky

 and hoping something better comes tomorrow.

Hoping all the verses rhyme

and the very best of choruses to follow all the doubt and sadness,

I know that better things are on their way.

 

Here's hoping that the days ahead

Won't be as bitter as the ones behind you.

Be an optimist instead
And somehow happiness will find you.
Forget what happened yesterday
I know that better things are on their way.

 

I just can’t. I just can’t see better days and I will never forget. I can’t do this. I am so tired. I am a pessimist.

 

Most of my running route was ahead of me and this was a decision point – give in or bear down. I chose the latter despite the leaden feeling in my legs. I banished all thoughts and listened to my feet on the pavement, tried to block out the aches and pains of my body, the thoughts of my slow pace, my graying hair and middle age. My inner cheerleader piped up:

 

Just keep going. Something is better than nothing, any exercise is better than no exercise. You’ll be happy when you are done.

 

One mile turned into two. As I turned the corner near the train station, memories overcame me again. A cold, slushy, winter day when I picked Chris up from the commuter rail train after an appointment at the hospital to go over the most recent brain imaging tests. We discussed the radiation oncologist’s interpretation of his latest MRI while lingering in the parking lot, just across the street from where I currently ran. It had not been good news. There was some kind of T1 FLAIR on the scan. Maybe that’s not the right terminology, and I wracked my brain for what had been mentioned in the radiologist’s report. It doesn’t matter now… It had been terrible news and we both knew it, and then the worst came to pass in the months that followed that day.

 

I hate myself in the present moment for what I didn’t know then, and what I didn’t know then was what to say to Chris. At the time nearly three years ago, I had absolutely no idea what to say. I could not offer any comfort, no words of assurance. My own brain had been full of a static white noise indicative of panic. All I could think was You are actually going to die soon and how is that going to go? What will I do without you? What am I supposed to do? I only knew it would not be helpful to verbalize those thoughts, so I left them unsaid. I cannot remember what I said to him; I am only certain it was inadequate. He probably knew what I was afraid of anyway.

 

The truth is, I still don’t know what to do even after everything that happened after that day passed. I admitted this as I ran past the place where Chris and I shared that painful moment, though experienced it differently.

 

I hate this so much.

 

“This” meaning I hate myself for everything I failed to do and say back then. “This” meaning I hate my current life. “This” meaning I hate myself for hating that I am alive, living this terrible, empty, less-than, privileged, stuck in the mud life while Chris is dead.

 

I feel ashamed because “this” is not what he wanted for me. “This” is not living my best life. “This” is trauma. “This” is waking up day after day without the person you were so close to you thought you couldn’t live without. “This” is not what it means to be truly living at all.

 

“This” is why I am constantly seeking distraction. “This” is why I desperately need the pandemic to be over, for me and the kids to be out of the house five days a week. “This” is awful, tortured, looking back, willing to trade anything for getting to go back for even a minute, even to the hardest days when he was alive. “This” is why I run with headphones pulsing music or pumping someone else’s story through my ears. “This” is why I am jealous of the neighboring family coming home to an ordinary night, free from the drama of a terminal brain tumor.

 

The unplugged run still did me good, it was still better to have finished than given up. The exercise tired my body, it brought the tears that frequently (yes, still) need release.

 

Next time, I’ll return to my old habits and allow myself the distraction of being plugged in. After all, there must be a reason that grieving people are advised to get up and take a shower when they’d rather stay in bed, go to work when they’d rather stay home. Distraction serves a helpful purpose.

 

 

 

 

Little Things, Big Things

 It was just a small part of the day, a quick trip to Target. The dog was in the back seat of the car after a walk in the woods so I could not aimlessly wander the aisles. This stop was all business - dog food and shaving items. My son needed a men’s razor and shave gel.

A few days earlier, my oldest child turned fourteen. He is now decidedly taller than me with little trace of his toddler plumpness. He and I have noticed quite a bit of peach fuzz on his face, and I mentioned that whenever he wanted to shave, we could tackle that. He didn’t say much, so I left it there except to acknowledge that it would be strange without Dad. I told him we could easily find resources just like I do when I’m faced with a task Dad used to do. YouTube, of course. In fact, I had learned of a guy who made videos for just this purpose – to help boys whose fathers weren’t around for any reason – and I mentioned that to my son.

A few weeks went by, and then my son said he thought he should shave. He worried out loud that he would never learn without Dad. It was one of the only times he has voiced that kind of concern… My heart felt a stabbing pain for his loss. For Chris’s loss. My mind’s eye traveled back in time to other moments, where a father took absolute delight in teaching his son to use tools. To ride a bike. To fish.  

I don’t know what to say in the face of pain related to Chris’s death that isn’t mine. If I try to dive into the feelings too much, it goes nowhere and feels forced. I know that instantly relating back to my pain is doing the other person a disservice; I think it might be worse than saying nothing, so I try to avoid doing that though the urge is strong and well-intentioned. As in so many other unfixable moments of this experience, first with Chris and later with family members, I listened in this case. I did not want to say nothing, so I simply said I was sorry, that Dad would have loved to teach him. We let it go again.

Later, I found out that my son had privately searched for the YouTube man’s channel after our conversation. Sure enough, there was a video tutorial on shaving and he had watched it. Turns out it didn’t seem so hard and my boy was ready to try. We looked in the bathroom closet. There was a plastic case of six razor cartridges and Dad’s old razor. I had thrown away the used blade on the razor a while back, closing my eyes as I buried the dulled cartridge in the trash, but I saved the handle for just this moment. That act had reminded me of discarding Chris’s electric toothbrush head a few days after he died, I had forced myself to do it while swallowing bile.

The razor handle seemed to be missing a piece to fit to the blades in the refill pack. The scientist in me pulled out my own razor and replacement blades to examine the mechanism for snapping together, and still I couldn’t understand the six cartridges in front of us. The blades obviously needed another piece of plastic to fit to the razor handle. Perhaps I had unknowingly thrown that critical fitting away with the last blade Chris used. It was clear that there was no way for our son to affix the new blades and reuse Chris’s razor handle with the supplies I could find in our house.

It was another disappointment, but I didn’t say anything about that to our son. In fact, I don’t know if using Chris’s razor and blades would have been meaningful to him or if it would have been a burden imposed by me, or just… a means to an end - shaving for the first time in that minute.

Thus, my trip to Target. I tried to make it easy on myself by limiting the time so I couldn’t lose myself in memories and wonderings, the “he should be here, he should get to do this” thoughts. Unfortunately, I spent considerable time in the shaving aisle out of confusion. I saw the same multi-pack of blades lacking the plastic fitting that we had at home, and I didn’t see any razor handles that could use them. I felt stupid. I looked at new razors that came with two replacement blades, seeing the same handle that Chris used but blade cartridges with a plastic fitting. All the while, my brain was working overtime remembering the countless times we ran simple errands together. First it was just us, then it was our family of three, later it became our finished family of four. We preferred to be together whenever possible, even for the mundane stuff, even when a toddler and six-year-old in tow tried our patience, even when I was convinced said six-year-old had lice and I was close to hyperventilating in Target. It was always. Always. ALWAYS safe and comfortable and life-affirming to be together.

Come back. We need you. Please come back.

I swore to myself that I would not cry in Target over this. One more minute in the men’s hygiene aisle and I would, aching for my husband and in disbelief that our boy was becoming a man without his father, so I just grabbed a new razor packaged with two replacement blades. There were too many options for shaving cream and gel, so I forced myself to pick a can without overthinking the choice. I made a beeline for the self-checkout lanes and escaped.

It felt sad, yet good at the same time, to casually present the purchases to my son. He had a need. His dad would be the most natural person to help him, but he’s dead. So, I took care of it in the best and only way I know how.  

My son put the new shaving supplies in “his” bathroom. The lower-level bathroom. The bathroom that Chris arranged to be remodeled and painted himself in the cheerful blue color we chose together. The one the males in the family used for a couple of years, and now just my boy does.

Later, my son shaved for the first time in the privacy of his bathroom. Chris wasn’t there. I was not needed in the room. Apparently, it went quite well without either of us supervising. Just one tiny cut. I provided some advice - put a little piece of tissue on it. The blood will draw the tissue to press against the skin, sealing it off. Miraculously (from my son’s point of view), that worked. Believe it or not, I do know a thing or two.

I am all that my children have now for their daily care, guidance, and ultimate launching into the world. I worry that I am not enough. Still, I do the best I can because there is no other choice. Similarly, the children are forced to be self-reliant and mature beyond their years. That last point may not be all bad, but the tradeoff is terrible. How I wish it were not so…

This was just a small event. Something that my son and I handled. But it was a big reminder that the things Chris lamented he would miss are now happening. Time has passed and the children are growing up. Two years past his death and these kids are entirely different people, much farther down their personal trajectories toward adulthood. Without a doubt, Chris would be shocked by their stature and delighted by their personalities.

Why am I the one still here? Why did I draw the long straw? Why am I not filled with joy at being able to witness this?

With respect to the latter, it is because my heart is full of loss. Surviving and coping require so much, it is still hard to feel any joy. And yet, I am uncomfortable with my selfishness. I have been so focused on my personal pain that sometimes I cannot imagine what others feel. The kids miss Dad even if they don’t talk about it much. Chris has missed so much time with them, so many accomplishments and such growth, and he will miss so much more.

Chris knew and fully understood what I am only now beginning to grasp. Oh, he clearly and deeply knew just what he would miss. At the time, when he talked of disappearing and not getting to see how the kids turned out, I didn’t know what to say. I tried to listen. I tried to be present and not turn away out of fear. I tried not to burden him with my own pain of facing a future without him. I hope I did the right thing in those moments; I hope it was enough. I did the best I could.

I miss him.

We miss him.

He should be here.

This was just a little thing, a blip, but the little things in life are what make it so special. The little things are really the big things, and Chris is missing them all.

 

 

 

Outsider

Our neighborhood is mostly made up of modest 1970s split level homes, but there are a couple of larger, enviable colonials with beautifully landscaped yards. A young couple recently moved into one of those “nicer” homes. I did not meet them until they adopted a dog early in the pandemic, then they were frequently out walking and Phoenix would raise a ruckus whenever they approached us on the street. It was rather awkward until they graciously offered to let the dogs say hello. The dogs sniffed each other and we made some small talk. I discovered they are lovely people. If we were contemporaries they would likely be too popular, too fashionable to be close friends of mine, but as it turns out I’m a good decade or more senior to them and we can certainly be friendly acquaintances whose dogs now adore one another.    

For quite some time I wondered what this couple thought of me, the solitary middle-aged woman who plays numerous sports in the yard with her two kids, is pulled around by a large, poorly trained dog, and undertakes dubious DIY projects with no partner in sight. It troubled me that they might think I was divorced, then it bothered me that I considered divorce stigmatizing. Why do I care what they think, anyway?

I have not always been alone. Someone once chose me, treasured me, considered me his rock, made this place a home with me, took care of me just as I took care of him.

About a month ago, I noticed a change to their patterns. One car was gone for a few days while snow collected on the remaining vehicle. As I accompanied Phoenix on her countless walks from that cluster of days, I watched for signs of activity that would mark their return. I knew they were at the hospital for their baby’s birth. My vigilance, likely borne of PTSD, could not be set aside until I saw the baby blue decorations on the front porch complete with a cheerful “It’s a Boy!” banner. First came a rush of relief for his safe arrival. Then, on its heels came something much less attractive - envy crept in from the edges of my consciousness.

I had what they have and now it’s gone.

I want what they have.

Why didn’t I get to keep what they almost certainly will?

I used to be in that club. You know, the one that our culture worships yet withholds membership from far too many people. The club that proclaims if you have done everything right as a successful person you will be educated, land a great job, marry the perfect person, buy a beautiful house that is decorated just so, have 2.3 perfect kids spaced two years apart, celebrate 10 years of marriage, then 20, then enjoy an empty nest together, then retire and travel, then celebrate a golden wedding anniversary.

It’s an exclusive club by nature, unattainable for most. Just looking at the numbers, I’m puzzled at how the mystique of the club can persist with the divorce rate still hovering near 50%. And beyond that, we are not all so privileged to reap any one of those membership benefits if we simply work hard enough and do the right things. It’s a real problem that our culture worships that club, with its ladder laden with over-the-top wedding proposals, elaborate reveals for a baby’s biological sex, and ostentatious house renovations. It just sets people up for disappointment and envy.

I’m certainly guilty of buying into it all… I continually sought the next life notch – college, grad school, husband, baby, tenure-track position. The last stop was the home we purchased after I got my coveted job offer. It was all going according to plan and yes, I felt a bit smug. Self-satisfied. See? I worked so hard and I got what I deserved.

Then the train veered off the expected path with the surprise brain tumor… After a period of shock and intense treatment, I kept clawing at my club membership. We should have been kicked out with the terminal diagnosis, but not many people knew about it and I faked it. I enjoyed posting pictures of my perfect family and hid the fact that baby #2 was born to a father who would not live to see her out of childhood. I desperately didn’t want that to be true, so I didn’t advertise it. Instead, I shared the most flattering pictures of our intact family of four and basked in the approval of the club.

Oh, but now there is no more pretending. Dead husband, single mom. Those things get you kicked out of the club for good. The members are horrified that tragedy can strike someone like you, someone who did everything right. Nobody knows what to do with your struggle, your deflated affect, your distractedness, your solitary widowed existence. You are out.

I cannot blame anyone for my outsider status. In fact, the finger points toward me most of all. I bear guilt for revering the club in the first place. It smacks of privilege and I don’t like that, I wish I didn’t want what I do. Yet here I am, very much on the outside now, willing to give anything to be let back in.

That’s not happening. Not ever.

It’s something I have yet to come to terms with. You cannot go back. A person who has died never walks through the door again. Even if I were to remarry a new partner, we would make some kind of blended, grieving family that really doesn’t fit into the club.  

I’m an outsider now.

I hate it so much. Sometimes I’m downright surly because I spent my entire childhood being a nerd outsider, my college years dedicated to being a rule-following perfectionist outsider, my grad school years struggling as a feelings-driven science outsider. Just when things came together for me, boom! Permanent outsider status conferred as a young widowed parent.

On my good days, I try to make the best of it. When the couple up the street appeared to walk the dog with a stroller, I decided I needed to reach out. I made an enormous pot of soup and dropped some off, admiring their sweet baby and saying that they made a lovely family. Sincerely. The baby fussed a bit, and they looked tired. The husband implied the baby cried a lot. I wished them good luck and hoped they would get some rest. I told them I was always around if they needed a respite dog walker or anything else. I think/hope it was a normal social interaction.

They likely didn’t know that I swallowed the lump in my throat and held back my stories about how our first baby was quite difficult, too. They probably wouldn’t have known what to say if I described how Chris would allow our son to suck on his pinky finger and walk laps through the house with him until he finally fell asleep. 

My vision was blurred by tears on the walk back home. This is far from the only situation in which I felt like my contributions would make people feel awkward so I said nothing. My stories cannot spill out naturally anymore; there's not much to say that is lighthearted or fun or generally welcome in most company.

I’m an outsider now.