Category Archives: Life’s honest moments

I started writing this post several times over the last couple of months, but it seemed too strange, even for me. How to express this…comfort kept eluding me. I took a picture of this comfort, cropped it down, saved it, thinking it would help me settle my thoughts. But then I lost the pic somewhere in my stellar lack of computer skills. Ok, cosmos, thought I. Not time to write this yet.

And then I read a beautiful piece, written by a woman who lost her son, shared by another woman who’d lost her son, in part about the comforts we take that many won’t understand without having experienced the loss of a child. Cosmos, I get you.

 See? I told you it was strange. What the heck is it, right? I actually have no idea other than Chris did it years ago, when he and a friend were doing constant chemical experiments in our basement. He’d been cleaning up and, somehow, this got on the pedestal of the sink in his bathroom. He tried to get it off. I tried to get it off. It. Would. Not. Come. Off. It was annoying, then. Now, it comforts me in that uncanny way I’m having a hard time understanding.

I have pictures, writings, clothes, his backpack, wallet, school books. So many tangible things he touched, he created. But I see this mysterious smear of whatever chemical they’d been playing with whenever I go into his bathroom, and it makes me smile. It says, “I was here!” It comes with a specific memory of a time he was really happy. What used to annoy me now brings me comfort, because that whole incident would have been forgotten had I been able to clean it away.

It’s a strange thing to take comfort in, when I have so many other things at my disposal. My kids teased me, years ago, because I wouldn’t clean my grandson’s baby handprint from the sliding glass door. For months, it stayed there. It made me happy to see it. An automatic welling of adoration for that little pipsqueak hit me every time I spotted it. And now it’s the same with that smear on the sink pedestal.

And it’s not just the smear. It’s the sticker in Gracie’s room, the one she put on the wall when she wasn’t supposed to. It’s the circular marks on the hardwood floor in Scott’s room, from the coins that had been on the floor when he spilled something and never cleaned it up. It’s the wedding gown Jamie left here after she and Josh got married, still hanging in the closet. Annoyances turned into comfort. Proof that there was a time when simple, silly things like this actually mattered enough to vex me.

Peace.

Dad asked where your ukulele was. I told him Scott has it, out in Portland. He showed me a catalog he got in the mail, really cool ukuleles, and wondered if Scott would want a new one. I told him the one he has is kind of crappy, but it means the world to him.

I heard you singing, after that. The same song…

I roll the window down.  Close my eyes and breathe in. 

…over and over. You did your own rendition, slightly different from the way Ben Gibbard wrote it. Maybe you didn’t know all the notes, or the right words.

Then looking upwards, I strain my eyes and try to see the difference between shooting stars and satellites...

Maybe you just liked your way better. I understand those tiny, subtle changes. I wonder if you did. Such a quiet song. Happy, really, and melancholy. Like you. Relieved.

“Do they collide?” I ask and you smile. With my feet on the dash the world doesn’t matter.

You tried playing your ukulele, those few weeks you were home, before the end. I remember watching you, listening, without you knowing. You got to the end of a song, and the ukulele kind of just fell away, your face falling too. The music wasn’t helping.

When you feel embarrassed, I’ll be your pride. When you need directions, I’ll be the guide…

Your voice always cracked at the high note, not because you couldn’t reach it, but because you liked it better that way. It’s more beautiful that way, you told me. Perfection isn’t beautiful.

...For all time. For all time.

As bits and pieces hit me, I emailed notes to myself on my cell, hoping it would be enough. Hoping if it wasn’t, I’d have the start of something. But I still heard you singing all night, in my dreams. All morning, as I went about my chores. I see your smile, right now. My goofy kid. My sad, sorry, hurting kid. Now it’s all here, on this page, in my words, and I’m hoping you’ll go away for a little bit. Forgive me for that, but there you have it.

(Passenger Seat, Death Cab for Cutie)

Once again, I almost made this a private post, but I (apparently) stuck to my pact. Now it’s out there in all its glory. It makes me feel better to let it loose, but you are under no obligation to read it, no matter how much you love me. K?

Know what a calliope sounds like? (If you don’t, go here.) That joyful, slightly creepy, always manic music is how my brain feels.

I’m happy. I have a good life, a wonderful husband, good kids, adorable grandkids, a nice home. Lots of friends and family who love me. I’ve another book coming out in October. A fabulous literary agent shopping my masterpiece to publishers. I’m going to Europe in March with my parents and brothers. Day-to-day existence is full of writing and lunches with friends, floating in the pool. And laundry. I joke around on FB. I sparkle and shine and laugh. I seem fine. Like I’m adjusting. Processing. Living. And I am.

I know I’m obsessed with Stranger Things lately, but there is an Upside Down to the happiness. A world where all the light is dark, all the pure is tainted; a world where the monsters lurk. It squishes me, wrings every ounce of light out of me. It makes me feel like a fraud, because how in the hell can I, in any stretch of the imagination, even consider being happy when my son is gone? When I failed him so utterly? When he had it so hard and then died all alone? When he won’t get married and have children, a career. Such simple wants, my son had. It doesn’t matter if the choices I made, the things I did helped him to survive a few years more; it was all the things I did wrong that cost us him in the end.

My logical brain knows that’s all bullshit. It tells me I did all I could, his choices were on him, I fought harder for him than he did for himself. There isn’t a platitude I haven’t consoled myself with. It’s just when the Upside Down gets me, it gets me, and no amount of logic or love can set me free. Because no one knows how I feel. No one. Because I’m the one who who never gave up. I’m the one who took him to doctors and meetings and physical therapy sessions. I’m the one who brought him home again when the darkness fell so hard he couldn’t see. I’m the one who stood outside his door that morning, playful and hoping to make him smile, asking if he was alive in there. I’m the one who opened the door and found him. Me. Alone. I can’t unsee him lying there. I can’t unfeel that “NO!” ripped from my throat. The panicked 911. My son is dead. My son is dead. How did I miss the signs? How didn’t I know this was a possibility? I let down my guard. I got comfortable. “I got this. No problem. We’ve weathered worse.” There is nothing worse. Nothing.

And then there’s the no-feeling. That’s the worst of all. I’m happy, I guess. I’m sad, I guess. It all seems to have happened to someone else. “Oh, that’s a shame. Really sad.” It almost feels as if he was never here to begin with, as if he’s fading away and nothing I do can alter that. I can’t even cry. What am I crying for? I feel nothing.

These things hit me and sometimes last a moment, sometimes days. I’m exhausted. And really, that fucking calliope needs to shut the hell up, already.

I woke up out of sorts again today, fresh from dreaming about being in Portland with Scottie. He was showing us animals he was raising. They were white and fluffy, but other than that I can’t recall what kind of animal they were. Not sheep. Maybe goats? My dad was there, and he picked up one of the animals (strange in and of itself, since my dad has never willingly touched an animal in his life) and set it across his shoulders. The fluffy white thing turned into a young woman in a black and gold gown, a black, velvet ribbon at her throat. She balanced there a moment, then dad lifted her on his palm, like a circus performer. She wobbled a little but said, “Steady, steady.” In the background, Scott and I tried (and failed) not to laugh, because even in dreams we knew it was a really strange sight. And then I woke up, or rather, Frank woke me. I don’t like sleeping late. It throws off the rest of my day. I never thought I’d become such a creature of habit. Of daily ritual. But I have.

Gads, I miss my son. It’s been five months and fifteen days since that Sunday in March I hugged him good-bye. An adventure for him, one he needed so desperately. This is his time, and I am as thrilled for him as I am sad for myself. More thrilled than sad, in fact. I’ve said it before and it bears repeating–I was never a mother who wanted, or expected, to keep her kids forever. Fly! Be free!

Who gets it?

When we were in France, on our last night in Cannes, my dad raised his glass and said he wanted to propose a toast. We all had the same thought, I expect, that it would be to the wonderful time we had together. But he said, “To my son, who I love more than life.” I will admit, it stung just a little. Sitting beside him, I teasingly and tentatively said, “Daddy?” Without missing a beat, though slightly red-cheeked, he looked at me and said, “Oh, honey. I always have you.”

I know my dad. I know how much he loves me and my sister. I also know he’s always related better to the boys, as would a man raised in the era he was raised in. But I also know his actions have always spoken louder than words that–despite being a gifted lawyer–didn’t always respond emotionally. This morning, after my dream and realizing how much I miss both my sons so intensely every day, I came to realize something, and it stems from that old adage, “A son is a son til he takes a wife. A daughter’s a daughter the rest of your life.”

It’s what he’s always believed, that he’d lose his sons one day to another family set. To distance. To something. And he didn’t. Strangely enough, though one brother did go out to California twice in his life, for several years at a time, he’s now living within ten minutes of my parents. My other brother has never lived more than half an hour from them. His daughters, though? I’m in Connecticut and my sister is in New Paltz. Close, but not close enough for a drop in.

But I got it. After a few weeks pondering that toast and comment–because though first impressions might sting, they’re seldom what they seem–I understand, and it’s because he put me in charge of planning our cruise next March. I’D get my brothers in line. I’D make all the arrangements. I’D see to it we all got to the same place at the same time. Because I’m the daughter. His peacekeeper (always have been, always will be.) “I always have you.”

You have to know my parents, or at least me, to understand them. Words are easy. They’re safe. They’re often not what is meant at all. Actions are harder, truer, and make a far more lasting impression. Dad isn’t perfect, and sometimes he says things he shouldn’t. Sometimes I feel like I don’t matter as much as my brothers. Growing up a girl during the time I did, with parents caught in their own upbringings, I’m left with a few hiccups that jolt me now and then. But you know what? I’m over it. Who I am now is the direct result of my past, ALL of my past, and I really like me.

I’ve been out of sorts since waking, and so here I am, sorting myself out. Dad picking up that fluffy white animal in my dreaming, in missing my son, in that animal turning into a girl balanced on his palm like a circus performer might not mean anything at all. Or it could mean a whole lot. I choose to see the meaning there. And now I’m no longer disoriented. See how that works? Off to write.

Peace.

It lingers, this strange little event from yesterday, and leaves my brain buzzing, my heart lighter. Channeling Raven’s message, and its magic, I’m not dismissing this as a strange but nevertheless insignificant event. I need to share the happiness, as well as the despair. There is both, in grief, absolutely.

I have the dearest friends, friends who know the upcoming anniversary of Christofer’s death looms, awaits me on the other side of my trip to France. They’ve worried about me all year, but especially now. And so, after lunch yesterday, they presented to me a beautiful gift, a marble turtle, a loving card, and a garden stone to put out by Christofer’s tree.

Honestly, I was so moved by joy and love, I didn’t cry the way they’d feared I would. I was simply happy to know I had these amazing women who love me so much. My friend and I talked on the way home, about Chris, the upcoming anniversary, how I feel about the boys who are paying their own prices now, a year later. There is so much “I don’t know” concerning all those things. I don’t know how I’m going to be on that day of days. I don’t know how I feel about the boys, and the penalties they face. I don’t know many things. Only time will give those answers.

Months ago, when this was all still a fresh hell, another beloved friend (gads, I have so many of those, and how grateful I am) sent me a token of love and sisterhood. She’s a dollbaby, and our mascot has always been the turtle. It’s because of a shirt I brought home from one of my dollbaby trips that Chris started calling me Turtle to begin with. Turtle has lots of space and meaning in my life. She sent me a turtle nightlight, to remind me that the smallest light can dispel any darkness.

And what did I find, upon returning home from lunch yesterday?

Yes, lit. The little turtle sitting on my beside table was lit up. I hadn’t turned it on. The cats certainly didn’t. I laughed, and then I cried, but the happy kind. My boy. He has a sense of humor. And he loves me so much.