You Had a Good Look.

Watching him swagger through the gate, his little sister half walking, half running to keep up, the image library flips to that very first “first” when the start of school wasn’t just the start of school. It was the start of something new for all of us.

A few short months after his father’s death came his all-important fifth birthday, a moment he had been planning since the day after his fourth. Then the first “after it happened” summer vacation. And then the start of kindergarten, a milestone that children mark in time and another moment when I would stand alone flanked by pairs.

The night before his very first day, we carefully chose the clothes and laid them atop unscuffed shoes. Folders and pencil crayons inside a new backpack and a lunchbox waiting in the fridge. Tucking him into bed, he looked up at me and asked for one thing.

“Mom, I really want a mayo sandwich for lunch on my first day.”

Mother Hubbard’s cupboard was nearly bare and a generous amount of peanut butter and jelly was already holding the last two pieces of bread together. A deal was struck. While he was at school, I would get the necessary supplies. I had a 30-minute window between conference calls. Five minutes there, five minutes back, and 20 minutes to get in and out.

Easy peasy, lemon squeezy.

We measure loss in tears, cards and passing days, but death’s insidious companion wraps its serpentine fingers around you until you become an empty shell, your senses obliterated and your vision cloudy. Like a medical-induced coma, we move numbingly through each day until the raw edges stop bleeding. I don’t remember the details of the first days, weeks and months. I find messages sent that I don’t remember, pictures taken of days that are cloudy and vague. Featureless faces crowd my memory.

Like the one standing between me and that deli sandwich.

“You had a good look and so I thought I would take a chance. I see that you are not wearing a ring and I thought perhaps you are available and so I thought I would take a chance.”

Tick tock. My tongue went silent while his gained momentum. While he lauded my attributes and took a chance, I seethed inside, angry at the man who should have been with me at the gate that morning. The man who loved the way I looked on a sleepy Sunday morning as much as he admired me in 3.5-inch peep toes. The man who had laughingly promised I would never have to date again. On that first day I realized that was no longer blissfully oblivious.

"You had a good look and you weren’t wearing a ring so I thought I would take a chance. But now I am wondering if perhaps you are taken?”

Staring up at him, my palms gripping the handrail of the cart, I dipped my toe in the dating pool.

“Um, my husband just died?”

And with that I snatched my toe out of the water and watched him back away, arms upraised as though I had just whispered the words “syphilis” or “leprosy” and made a mental note to see if I know a lifeguard. Because this is going to be long and painful and I clearly don’t know how to swim.  

Itsy Bitsy, Teeny Weeny.

Three steps and 30 feet of searing hot tile. It might as well be 30 miles in three minutes.

This was not part of today’s itinerary. We were supposed to see our movie, while they went to theirs. But moments after they walked out the door, my almost-six-but-feels-like-sixteen daughter decided that she simply wanted to spend an afternoon in the pool. And now I am faced with getting from here – in the pool – to there – the lounge chair where I left my towel – unseen and undamaged.

The odds don’t look good.

My son lives for Fridays, his weekly shot of testosterone-fueled antics, adventures and attitudes delivered by a man as irritating as he is endearing. A complete stranger a year ago, he entered our lives to soothe a little boy’s damaged heart. He shared my husband’s profession, but he did not know him nor did he know or have an obligation to the family left behind. He simply heard of a little boy in need and responded to the call. But as they often do, he went above and beyond the call of duty becoming my daughter’s champion as well. And in bringing their laughter back, he brought back my own. It is often said that the measure of a man comes not in what he says, but what he does. By any measure, he is a wonderful man.

Who does not need to see me in my bikini.

It’s not that I look bad – I can hold my own poolside. But it’s not easy to keep eye contact while wearing a foot of lycra cut in tiny triangles pieced together with string that is always just a little too loose to guarantee that everything will stay where you put it in the first place. And while I love my children, I do not love what they have done to the elasticity of my midriff.

For 15 minutes I have watched him toss, flip and dive alongside my two little sea urchins. Watching them is like watching the kaleidoscope of sunlight dance on the water. They sink below the surface, three bodies moving silently like sea creatures along the ocean bottom. That he would give her his undivided attention in this drenched playground has been my daughter’s wish all week. And suddenly I find myself wishing that he would swim underwater with her just a little longer.  

Because I’m going to need more than 10 seconds to get to that towel.

Still Breathing.

Remember – don’t forget to breathe.

The boy standing chest deep in front of me has had a smile the size of the Grand Canyon since I arrived and if I wasn’t utterly committed to this, I would offer to remove it for him. This is exactly the reason that, for most of my life, the only use I have found for a bathing suit has combined lounging in the sun with a good book.

And yet, here I am. Cold, wet and slightly irritated at the man-boy that happens to be in charge at this very moment.  Don’t forget to breathe. As if I could possibly forget.

I blame this on my husband and while my own personal jury is still out as to whether or not he is looking down from somewhere, I do know this. If he is watching, he is probably kicking back on some cloud with his trademark grin and tossing back a cold microbrew. (That’s right, my heaven serves beer.) Standing here in this pool preparing to propel myself through the water with grace – and by that I do not mean the frothing mass that you see on the Discovery Channel when crocodiles descend on their prey – is on the long list of things I am now learning to do now that he is gone.

To be fair, he is not entirely at fault. My ability to sink like a rock has been cultivated from an early age. My childhood was spent above the Arctic Circle and unless you had an interest in hypothermia, there wasn’t a need to take a dip in the ocean. By the time I landed in warmer climes I had reached those awkward teenage years when wearing a bathing suit had the potential to permanently scar your psyche. Worse yet was the fear that you might earn the unfortunate nickname “Flounder” because that was exactly what you did while wearing that bathing suit. Almost exclusively, I managed to avoid pool activities throughout my entire high school career. Don’t ask how – you really don’t want to know.

But now that my own personal lifeguard is no longer in residence, learning to swim has landed at the top of the must-do list. I should be able to fish my children out of the pool if necessary, not the other way around. There is also that pesky never-shrink-from-a-challenge character flaw of mine. One friend has suggested we tackle a sprint triathlon (I am pretty sure that “flounder” is not a race category option) and yet another is ready to put money down that I will find a way to wriggle out.

Putting on this lycra suit – designed to keep everything in, but only if you have the agility, strength and willpower to get your body into it in the first place – was both mortifying and liberating. For me, swimming lessons are the wide-awake equivalent of the dream that you are standing naked in front of high school assembly. Except that right now I am not dreaming and, let’s be honest, when you are in a bathing suit you might as well be wearing nothing at all.  

But with the suit, I also pulled on something else. Like Batman when he dons the cape, except that he has all sorts of fancy gadgets and toys and all I have is a faded beach towel.

Putting on this suit and getting into this pool was something bigger – another step in the reinvention of me. A reminder that I am still alive, that there are so many doors I haven’t yet opened, and that I don’t back down. It was also a reminder that the reason he and I meshed so perfectly was because we both shared the same passion for life. Yes, he would be laughing at me right now. I can almost hear him. But he would also be challenging me, not just to dive headfirst into something new and daunting but to rise above it and succeed. His approach to life? Go big or stay home.

So here I am. Cold, wet and secretly relieved to be wearing a suit tight enough to keep everything in place while flailing.