Sunday, April 24th
I went dancing this evening. It's the wee hours; I'm still thinking as Saturday night. I was able to go, smile, talk with friends, move and strut some stuff. Not as much as I'd done with you. But it was good.
A man asked me to dance at some point, by coming up behind and trying to take my arm. I ignored him, kept dancing. When he put his hand on the back of my waist, standing behind me, to ask again, I felt the physical vibe that it was an error, it was not you.
Damn it.
2:04am.
Saturday, April 23, 2016
Sunday, April 10, 2016
Sunday, April 10th
My cry rate is coming down. I find myself telling the tears to stay back, because it's quite difficult to conduct daily life while crying. I've got to do it. The mac and cheese has to get made for dinner.
I'd like to talk about our first dates again.
At the end of the very first date you looked at me, eyes really looking into me, body swaying in toward mine, gentle smile, and you kissed me, lingering. See what you do to me, you said. And you to me, I say. Over five years later and I still see you doing it.
You texted the next day. You'd enjoyed yourself. You looked forward to seeing me again. You texted again. You sent pictures of your kids. You called when you were near my house. I didn't quite know what to do with you. I liked you. I liked the texts. I liked the photos. On the second or third date your car broke down and I pulled up to the car lot as you were buying a replacement. He's a keeper, the car salesman said, nodding over at you. You looked at me with such blatant affection that I felt myself turn shy. How to answer this, I thought. Stand beside this man as he buys a car and be....what...to him.....I smiled back at you. I felt myself a good person, smiling back.
I've tried to remember how we became a committed couple. It's not all that clear in my mind. It seemed to happen, obviously, with speed and such sense. One day I was leaving you to meet someone I'd dated before. For coffee, as friends have coffee. I described this to you, and while you were lacing up your boots I somehow told you that I didn't want to date this man anymore, I wanted to date you. No pressure. I felt none. It was simply true. You sat up from your boots and looked me keenly in the eye. It was a moment.
There was another moment a few weeks further into knowing you. Over Thanksgiving....you were with your family in Ohio. You texted me. You told me you were proud to be with me. You said it made you feel good inside. I knew you were starting to love.
It's 11:01. I have approximately 35 years or more to live in this life without you.
My cry rate is coming down. I find myself telling the tears to stay back, because it's quite difficult to conduct daily life while crying. I've got to do it. The mac and cheese has to get made for dinner.
I'd like to talk about our first dates again.
At the end of the very first date you looked at me, eyes really looking into me, body swaying in toward mine, gentle smile, and you kissed me, lingering. See what you do to me, you said. And you to me, I say. Over five years later and I still see you doing it.
You texted the next day. You'd enjoyed yourself. You looked forward to seeing me again. You texted again. You sent pictures of your kids. You called when you were near my house. I didn't quite know what to do with you. I liked you. I liked the texts. I liked the photos. On the second or third date your car broke down and I pulled up to the car lot as you were buying a replacement. He's a keeper, the car salesman said, nodding over at you. You looked at me with such blatant affection that I felt myself turn shy. How to answer this, I thought. Stand beside this man as he buys a car and be....what...to him.....I smiled back at you. I felt myself a good person, smiling back.
I've tried to remember how we became a committed couple. It's not all that clear in my mind. It seemed to happen, obviously, with speed and such sense. One day I was leaving you to meet someone I'd dated before. For coffee, as friends have coffee. I described this to you, and while you were lacing up your boots I somehow told you that I didn't want to date this man anymore, I wanted to date you. No pressure. I felt none. It was simply true. You sat up from your boots and looked me keenly in the eye. It was a moment.
There was another moment a few weeks further into knowing you. Over Thanksgiving....you were with your family in Ohio. You texted me. You told me you were proud to be with me. You said it made you feel good inside. I knew you were starting to love.
It's 11:01. I have approximately 35 years or more to live in this life without you.
Sunday, April 3, 2016
Sunday, April 3rd
I went to Monticello yesterday. Perhaps you noticed the Facebook post, with a picture of the boys there yesterday to complement my cover picture of you and I there years ago. We went to all the same spots, the boys and I, heard similar tour stories. I told them everything you told me. You thought Thomas Jefferson probably had ADHD. We all think you were right.
I didn't tell the boys that standing in Thomas Jefferson's library I could see you standing there too, your back to the books, glowing at me with the idea the tour guide threw out that I could somehow homeschool our grandchildren just like the Jefferson women. Your head was turned, you were looking at me from your left, and I stood by the books on the right. No words, you just flashed a smile with your raised eyebrows and then kept beaming at me.
You belong in that kind of house. Ideas everywhere. Projects. Lots of people coming in for parties and food. Grandchildren learning.
How can we do that? How can we have that idea living on, with me living and you not?
Honest question. 11:30pm.
I went to Monticello yesterday. Perhaps you noticed the Facebook post, with a picture of the boys there yesterday to complement my cover picture of you and I there years ago. We went to all the same spots, the boys and I, heard similar tour stories. I told them everything you told me. You thought Thomas Jefferson probably had ADHD. We all think you were right.
I didn't tell the boys that standing in Thomas Jefferson's library I could see you standing there too, your back to the books, glowing at me with the idea the tour guide threw out that I could somehow homeschool our grandchildren just like the Jefferson women. Your head was turned, you were looking at me from your left, and I stood by the books on the right. No words, you just flashed a smile with your raised eyebrows and then kept beaming at me.
You belong in that kind of house. Ideas everywhere. Projects. Lots of people coming in for parties and food. Grandchildren learning.
How can we do that? How can we have that idea living on, with me living and you not?
Honest question. 11:30pm.
Thursday, March 31, 2016
Thursday, March 31st
It's 11:35, and I'm home from my second trip to the hospital today. I thought this evening of the time that you came with me to Washington Hospital Center, right before Thanksgiving, I think maybe 2012. I was there for a biopsy. You were there to be with me. I'd come for my biopsy straight from the Orthopedic Clinic at Children's Hospital, just a walk next door. Ben had been in the ER at Children's for 11 hours straight the day before, so I was not thinking well at my biopsy. Numb, again, as perhaps people tend to be in hospitals.
Ben was fine, in the end, as you know, although it took some time and years to get there and it was very unnerving. I went in to my biopsy, and it was only stretched out on the table with multiple needles stuck in my neck that I was able to tell the doctors that I had just gotten the diagnosis of signs of thyroid disease, not thyroid cancer. The mood of the biopsy changed. Urgency faded. One might say the doctors almost chortled.
So I was calmer when I came out of the biopsy, having heard the chortles and being stretched out thin by my eleven hours in orthopedic questions with Ben. My mind was not on cancer, dire, the biopsy result, death, cancer.
But your mind went there. I saw you look up at me when I came back to the waiting room, a big patch on my throat over my thyroid. You looked at the patch and it hurt you. You were scared, done in by the needles in such a vulnerable part of me. You got up slowly to me, eyes on the patch, all care and open concern.
I walked through it then, frightened, but brave with the chortles of thyroid disease, not cancer. But I didn't forget your face.
I saw that face tonight, over and over, surrounded by the doctors and needles of Washington Adventist Hospital. I invented lots of scenes in which I got to give that care to you. And I'm going to go to bed before they all lose their hold on my mind. I like caring for you. I don't want to stop.
11:50pm.
It's 11:35, and I'm home from my second trip to the hospital today. I thought this evening of the time that you came with me to Washington Hospital Center, right before Thanksgiving, I think maybe 2012. I was there for a biopsy. You were there to be with me. I'd come for my biopsy straight from the Orthopedic Clinic at Children's Hospital, just a walk next door. Ben had been in the ER at Children's for 11 hours straight the day before, so I was not thinking well at my biopsy. Numb, again, as perhaps people tend to be in hospitals.
Ben was fine, in the end, as you know, although it took some time and years to get there and it was very unnerving. I went in to my biopsy, and it was only stretched out on the table with multiple needles stuck in my neck that I was able to tell the doctors that I had just gotten the diagnosis of signs of thyroid disease, not thyroid cancer. The mood of the biopsy changed. Urgency faded. One might say the doctors almost chortled.
So I was calmer when I came out of the biopsy, having heard the chortles and being stretched out thin by my eleven hours in orthopedic questions with Ben. My mind was not on cancer, dire, the biopsy result, death, cancer.
But your mind went there. I saw you look up at me when I came back to the waiting room, a big patch on my throat over my thyroid. You looked at the patch and it hurt you. You were scared, done in by the needles in such a vulnerable part of me. You got up slowly to me, eyes on the patch, all care and open concern.
I walked through it then, frightened, but brave with the chortles of thyroid disease, not cancer. But I didn't forget your face.
I saw that face tonight, over and over, surrounded by the doctors and needles of Washington Adventist Hospital. I invented lots of scenes in which I got to give that care to you. And I'm going to go to bed before they all lose their hold on my mind. I like caring for you. I don't want to stop.
11:50pm.
Thursday, March 31st
So much to say today. I've been at the hospital every day for the past week, surrounded by the kinds of people that could have helped you. This makes me numb. None of the medical people really realize this. We act like I'm there solely to take care of my mother, which is overwhelming enough. But the meaning of their abilities, their medications, their care.....it's painful. I get the sense that some of them might understand how I feel, if I were to explain it all. I think they've seen it before. The hospital is a place where anything can happen, any part of a person's life can be called up or into action.
My mother could have died. She broke her hip on Wednesday, but no one could operate to replace her hip because of the heart condition she was diagnosed with the Wednesday before that. This looked unsolvable for a few days. "Let it heal?" I asked, and they all looked at me. It won't, they said, using lots of different terms. She'll die. Everyone dies.
(Indeed. Everyone does die. Including vital handsome men in their 50s with unborn grandchildren and unmet desires to go to Paris. But I digress.)
Then all the medical people, after much rushing about and reviewing of medical records, decided that an alternate procedure that was too risky for most people was actually the best option for my 87-year-old mother. A temporary valve procedure was the thing. Not available at every hospital, but miraculously available at the small local hospital to which the ambulance had brought us last Wednesday, after my first choice hospital was full. Serendipity smiled at you, the nice man in the white coat said to me. I smiled. Wanly. Where was Miss Serendipity for you? I hate it. I can't process it. I like the nice man in the white coat, I feel that he'd like me to fill up some waiting space with pleasure, but that's not going to happen. I go to the parking lot and cry in my car instead.
So my mother is through the surgeries. Back to my small-term life of coaxing her to swallow small amounts of cream of wheat. This distracted me so much from you last summer, from the conversation I wish I'd had about where your health was really going. What if I'd brought it up, death? What if I'd somehow gotten through to you, let the true worry into my voice, let you hear how much my soul would drain out with all my worry? I got through to you, once, when you were driving someplace, without telling me when you were leaving, as usual, and I was worried, as usual, your sick self driving all around. Don't DO this to me, I'd said, and I'd felt my chains and walls fall as I spoke until everything I felt changed my voice to a wail. I don't want to worry that you're going to DIE!, the last word a cry piercing every tension between us. You heard it to your core, stopped blustering, stayed silent for a few seconds, and then told me in the same voice I imagine you use with your mother that you would call when you got there. And you did.
What if I'd gotten through to you last summer, just once? What if I had? All those doctors using all their energies and drips and medicines, all of that, some of it, on you? How could we be so disorganized?
It's 1:10pm, and I'm angry to miss you so.
So much to say today. I've been at the hospital every day for the past week, surrounded by the kinds of people that could have helped you. This makes me numb. None of the medical people really realize this. We act like I'm there solely to take care of my mother, which is overwhelming enough. But the meaning of their abilities, their medications, their care.....it's painful. I get the sense that some of them might understand how I feel, if I were to explain it all. I think they've seen it before. The hospital is a place where anything can happen, any part of a person's life can be called up or into action.
My mother could have died. She broke her hip on Wednesday, but no one could operate to replace her hip because of the heart condition she was diagnosed with the Wednesday before that. This looked unsolvable for a few days. "Let it heal?" I asked, and they all looked at me. It won't, they said, using lots of different terms. She'll die. Everyone dies.
(Indeed. Everyone does die. Including vital handsome men in their 50s with unborn grandchildren and unmet desires to go to Paris. But I digress.)
Then all the medical people, after much rushing about and reviewing of medical records, decided that an alternate procedure that was too risky for most people was actually the best option for my 87-year-old mother. A temporary valve procedure was the thing. Not available at every hospital, but miraculously available at the small local hospital to which the ambulance had brought us last Wednesday, after my first choice hospital was full. Serendipity smiled at you, the nice man in the white coat said to me. I smiled. Wanly. Where was Miss Serendipity for you? I hate it. I can't process it. I like the nice man in the white coat, I feel that he'd like me to fill up some waiting space with pleasure, but that's not going to happen. I go to the parking lot and cry in my car instead.
So my mother is through the surgeries. Back to my small-term life of coaxing her to swallow small amounts of cream of wheat. This distracted me so much from you last summer, from the conversation I wish I'd had about where your health was really going. What if I'd brought it up, death? What if I'd somehow gotten through to you, let the true worry into my voice, let you hear how much my soul would drain out with all my worry? I got through to you, once, when you were driving someplace, without telling me when you were leaving, as usual, and I was worried, as usual, your sick self driving all around. Don't DO this to me, I'd said, and I'd felt my chains and walls fall as I spoke until everything I felt changed my voice to a wail. I don't want to worry that you're going to DIE!, the last word a cry piercing every tension between us. You heard it to your core, stopped blustering, stayed silent for a few seconds, and then told me in the same voice I imagine you use with your mother that you would call when you got there. And you did.
What if I'd gotten through to you last summer, just once? What if I had? All those doctors using all their energies and drips and medicines, all of that, some of it, on you? How could we be so disorganized?
It's 1:10pm, and I'm angry to miss you so.
Saturday, March 26, 2016
Saturday, March 26th.
You can tell if you love someone by how it feels to look at their childhood pictures. If you see part of yourself in the photo, you've got your answer.
Your sister sent me Easter photos from your childhood. There you are, holding up that chocolate bunny with such joy, all six years of you happy. You are eight and looking at me from your own face; you are fifteen and have almost the same mouth. In all of them you have your hands.
Happy Easter. Tomorrow I'll cry in church when anyone mentions resurrection. Please be there.
You can tell if you love someone by how it feels to look at their childhood pictures. If you see part of yourself in the photo, you've got your answer.
Your sister sent me Easter photos from your childhood. There you are, holding up that chocolate bunny with such joy, all six years of you happy. You are eight and looking at me from your own face; you are fifteen and have almost the same mouth. In all of them you have your hands.
Happy Easter. Tomorrow I'll cry in church when anyone mentions resurrection. Please be there.
Saturday, March 19, 2016
Saturday, March 19th
I'd thought I was getting this crying issue under control. But I can see you looking at me over your glasses, skeptically, because you know I haven't. I just sat in the DC Basilica with tears streaming down my face. Likely not the first time it has happened in the pews, especially in those lighting candles for the dead. But I really must get ahold of myself. You nod, slowly, eyebrows lifting in humor. I HAVE, I insist, I cry about twice a day now. No more of this five-times-daily routine. You level your baby browns at me and gaze back.
Fine. We'll try something new. This is what I have to say.
1) I thought you looked so handsome in your reading glasses. A pair of your glasses, rimless silver masculine ones, sit with my sunglasses, and I imagine them on you every time I pass by. In these visions you're always wearing blue, and you're always thinking something quite intelligent. Perhaps you'd actually just be thinking that you're ready for a sandwich, but even mustard would be sexy on you in those reading glasses.
2) The trees are budding all around. There is a haze growing over the earth, twenty to fifty feet high. Each brach is becoming larger, tipped and ringed with green that can hardly be contained. Each day the view from my house is different. Life is rising here. You died when the earth was frozen and still. I'm angry for this, that this motion is in the trees, but your poor body gets none. I should stop it. Stop it. The earth can't help it. Mike. Let's try again. The trees are budding all around. Do you see?
3) You should be dancing in that funeral home of yours because John Kasich beat Trump in Ohio. The bigot lost. The normal guy from Ohio won. Your party is still in complete chaos, and Trump is still ahead, and the forces from every fairy tale known to man should be gathering to plan his defeat. Perhaps there's something you can do about this? Whisper in Boehner's ear? Ask Colin Powell to put Trump over his knee? You're caught, I feel it, you don't know what to say about your Republicans. Hah. I got you. I've got you here.
4) I'm planning a tree fort for the backyard. I will make sure things are bolted in tight. I will think of your toolboxes when it happens. I will say this to my kids.
5) I still want you to come back. The lack of a physical body is irrelevant to my desire.
6) I regret that I didn't pay more attention to football when you were alive. The stats bored me. I'm sorry. I will try to find a way to remember them. I now have a picture that your brother sent to me of you in football gear at 10. You're crouching. You might rush. You're probably making a football grimace inside your yellow helmet. That kid, that boy who I can build your adult body around, can he help me remember the scores. He cares about football. I need him.
7) A dad came up to the snack bar at the wrestling tournament a few weeks ago and ordered a pizza from me at the counter. He was polite. His hair was short. He looked athletic. He gave the name "Mike" for his order, and I had to turn away.
8) I've said enough things, and I think you're done now. Thank you for helping me to know when to stop. You usually did.
It's 8:08.
I'd thought I was getting this crying issue under control. But I can see you looking at me over your glasses, skeptically, because you know I haven't. I just sat in the DC Basilica with tears streaming down my face. Likely not the first time it has happened in the pews, especially in those lighting candles for the dead. But I really must get ahold of myself. You nod, slowly, eyebrows lifting in humor. I HAVE, I insist, I cry about twice a day now. No more of this five-times-daily routine. You level your baby browns at me and gaze back.
Fine. We'll try something new. This is what I have to say.
1) I thought you looked so handsome in your reading glasses. A pair of your glasses, rimless silver masculine ones, sit with my sunglasses, and I imagine them on you every time I pass by. In these visions you're always wearing blue, and you're always thinking something quite intelligent. Perhaps you'd actually just be thinking that you're ready for a sandwich, but even mustard would be sexy on you in those reading glasses.
2) The trees are budding all around. There is a haze growing over the earth, twenty to fifty feet high. Each brach is becoming larger, tipped and ringed with green that can hardly be contained. Each day the view from my house is different. Life is rising here. You died when the earth was frozen and still. I'm angry for this, that this motion is in the trees, but your poor body gets none. I should stop it. Stop it. The earth can't help it. Mike. Let's try again. The trees are budding all around. Do you see?
3) You should be dancing in that funeral home of yours because John Kasich beat Trump in Ohio. The bigot lost. The normal guy from Ohio won. Your party is still in complete chaos, and Trump is still ahead, and the forces from every fairy tale known to man should be gathering to plan his defeat. Perhaps there's something you can do about this? Whisper in Boehner's ear? Ask Colin Powell to put Trump over his knee? You're caught, I feel it, you don't know what to say about your Republicans. Hah. I got you. I've got you here.
4) I'm planning a tree fort for the backyard. I will make sure things are bolted in tight. I will think of your toolboxes when it happens. I will say this to my kids.
5) I still want you to come back. The lack of a physical body is irrelevant to my desire.
6) I regret that I didn't pay more attention to football when you were alive. The stats bored me. I'm sorry. I will try to find a way to remember them. I now have a picture that your brother sent to me of you in football gear at 10. You're crouching. You might rush. You're probably making a football grimace inside your yellow helmet. That kid, that boy who I can build your adult body around, can he help me remember the scores. He cares about football. I need him.
7) A dad came up to the snack bar at the wrestling tournament a few weeks ago and ordered a pizza from me at the counter. He was polite. His hair was short. He looked athletic. He gave the name "Mike" for his order, and I had to turn away.
8) I've said enough things, and I think you're done now. Thank you for helping me to know when to stop. You usually did.
It's 8:08.
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