The Odd Life of Me.

“Why did he have to go away?”

Her little arms are wrapped around me, wet checks against my neck, and after a year of watching her race forward she suddenly feels small again. Walking silently beside us, I feel his little hand touch her back, a gesture both comforting and jarring to us all.

We have been here many times before. And we will be here again. But tonight it is a collision of senses, memories and milestones.

For weeks, our house has been a maelstrom of order and disorder. New classrooms and teachers and frantic schedules barely managed. Surgical procedures minor in scope yet emotionally draining for the memories resurfaced. Painful inquisitions about the moments that changed everything and tensions long simmering and expected bearing rotten fruit. Birthdays of note and notes of importance.

“He was so nice, and they loved him so much. Why did he have to go away?”

She is on the cusp of her seventh year, a celebration that will arrive in five days. For days excitement has mingled with reflection, wishes for presents combined with wishes for presence. She does not remember a birthday without a void, and each year her excitement mingles with frustration and sorrow.

But the past year has seen change for us all, and the sensitive girl in my arms has shown me strength and a capacity for love beyond imagination and understanding. She has struggled to understand and deflect the stinging barbs that children hurl with unerring accuracy. She has led us toward a future filled with new love and happiness, while the past is remembered in equal measure. She dances with abandon in ways I dream I could. She sheds her tears openly and without rebuke, secure in the knowledge that we will shelter her in the way I wish I could be sheltered. Watching her gentle hands lift an insect to flight, I watch as she is transfixed by the beauty of the world around us. A world we are too eager to let pass us by.

“Timothy Green was such a nice boy. Was the movie real?”

Was it real? It was real for the lessons that we learn about life, love, loss and longing and a family broken. It was real for the pettiness of others who do not understand, who are scared and who are envious of others. It was real for understanding that life comes with loss, and with loss comes renewal. And with renewal comes new life, love and laughter.

“Sweetheart, even if Timothy Green wasn’t a real person, he’s the kind of person we all should have in our lives and the kind of person we should all try be.”

“But his Mom and Dad were so sad when he went away. And his friend was sad. And I’m sad.”

“It’s okay to be sad. The more you love someone, the sadder you are when they have to go.”

“Can we go to New York?”

“Why?”

 
“I think that is where Timothy Green went.”

The Weight of Words.

“I wish we had Daddy’s voice.”

My hands slip on the rough cords, a misstep unnoticed by him but a reminder of the little nuances that jar our contented daily existence. He has never said this before, but this simple statement is just enough to let failure and her malicious sibling, guilt, crash our party. Like unwelcome guests that leave without cleaning up after themselves, they whisper in my ear.

Should have … If only … Don’t you wish … Why didn’t …

In the hours and days and weeks that followed, his voice and his laughter went silent as “he’s not okay” thundered through my head. The mother that once shared her fear now watched as her daughter fought against it as his voice slipped away with each passing moment. While bodies around me pushed me to make decisions about healthcare and finances, funeral arrangements and medical records, I obsessed over the sound of his voice and the feel of his touch. Silent tears in dark corners as he told me to “leave a message, and I’ll call you back.”

But he never did.

We should have bought the video camera we meant to, but didn’t. If only I could watch as he carried her sleepy body down the hall, whispering “I love you, sweetie” for just one more night. I wish he was standing beside me tonight, his voice echoing across the arena as his son takes the ice.

Why didn’t he record a longer message?

It is the last trace of the voice that celebrated our victories and soothed our fears. The voice tinged with laughter at home, and commanding on the job. The voice we belonged to and believed in, and that belonged to and believed in us. 

And on the eve of his birthday, it is once again unbelievably close and incredibly loud. 

“Sweetheart, I know you can’t hear it, but it’s there. It will always be there.” 

You Talkin' To Me?

Robert De Niro is not driving. And it wouldn’t matter if he was. Because I am one red light away from going all taxi on my driver.

“Where, exactly, are we going?”

“Manhattan.”

“Nooooooo. Manhattan is back there. Behind us.”

I admit to being cartographically challenged. Two degrees and numerous test scores, however, prove that I am not stupid.

We are not going to Manhattan. If we were, it would be in front of us. Not fading in the distance through the rear view mirror.

It is past midnight and after nine hours of travel I have landed in a smoky cab that has alternated between breaking the sound barrier and dancing on the edge of disaster. I’m green with the apple threatening to make a re-appearance, and we’ve missed every green light since crossing the bridge. The first bridge.

We have been honked at, cussed at and cut off. My water bottle flew under the front seat like it was propelled with rocket fuel and at the last red light my seatbelt locked so tightly that it is now the last line of defense between my panic-stricken aortic chambers and the light of day. Or, in this case, the plexiglass wall that is the only thing separating the cabbie from the fist keeping him awake.

“I missed the turn. Gotta go ‘round.”

“You ‘gotta go ‘round’?”

“Lady, I had a long day. Stop kicking the wall!”

A long day. He had a long day. Did he promise a little girl that he wouldn’t die if the plane crashed? Did a little boy promise him that he’d take care of his sister when you’re gone? Did he sit beside a man knocking on the 100^th door who farted and whose knees danced up and down for five hours? No. He didn’t. But I did and I don’t really care how long his day was, because I want mine to end.

“I had a long day, too. And I would like it to end. You stop napping and I’ll stop kicking. Deal?”

That’s right, dude. You might think you’re Robert De Niro. But you’ve got Kathy Bates in the back seat.

And she’s not happy with the ending.

Happily Ever After, After All.

“Every story has a happy ending, right Mom?”

How – and how quickly – I answer is pivotal. An obnoxiously large snake is threatening the very existence of our hero Harry in the second installment of the boy wizard franchise. Five more movies were made and the grand finale is looming, so we know he makes it out unscathed. But my kids are double checking, just in case someone has played a dirty trick on Harry.

“Yes, every story has a happy ending.”

My kids look relieved but they – and I – will be happier when it slithers off screen. I felt the same way when Arnold’s Conan the Barbarian was trapped with James Earl Jones’ slithery alter ego. (Amazingly, I felt the same way decades later hearing about Arnie’s reptilian behavior. I wonder if Maria had been hoping that snake was close by.) There is just something about snakes. They are silent, sinister and slippery. And at this scale – looming on the outlandishly large TV screen my husband insisted was critical to his happiness – they are nightmarish. But that’s the point. Harry’s nemesis needs to be overwhelmingly evil so that good’s triumph is that much more impressive. I really don’t know if Harry gets a happy ending when the end finally comes, but it’s this or none of us sleep tonight.  

Every story has a happy ending. It was meant to be. Everything happens for a reason. There’s a reason for everything. It’s all part of the plan. His will. There’s a higher power at work.

I’ve heard them all. Well intentioned and genuine, it is not without a hint of irony that these sage and clichéd sayings are usually delivered by those who still have their stories intact. The ones who don’t? They’re imagining the reaction if they actually said out loud what they really thought of happy endings and higher powers. I know I have.

Real life is not the stuff of fairytales, and not every story has a happy ending. Ours was abrupt and messy. Some are downright nasty. Or sort-of happy and sort-of not. Or there isn’t just one ending. There’s the first and then the second. Sometimes a third. Not everyone is successful in their pursuit of happyness and even if hearts do go on, there’s always residual bruising. But angry bruises fade, leaving memories that remind you that loss is only possible when there is something to lose.    

So, whether it’s three crones wielding shears or an almighty force pulling our collective strings let’s just say that I’m not pleased with the adjustments that were made to my happy ending.

The first one, that is.

I Am Not Legend

“What part, exactly, of Will Smith getting eaten by post-apocalyptic plague cannibals did you think I would enjoy?”

Staring at the ominous mouth of the garbage disposal, I can still hear my irritated voice. One of the very few occasions that we had an evening to ourselves, and he decides we should see that. Will Smith might have been legend in the movie, but my fear-and-hormonally-induced tantrum was legendary. Once man and dog ran into the dark building where you just knew that the fanged clan was gathered, I started looking at the exit sign. By the time he was hanging upside down as the sun started to set on screen, I was worse than a four-year-old boy standing in left field after drinking an entire bottle of Gatorade. Right after he strangled his dog moments before it crossed that final line to becoming a virus-possessed beast I fished the car keys out of my husband’s pocket and walked out of the theater.

I don’t do scary.

Rosemary’s Baby. Children of the Corn. The Omen. Alien. The Birds. Freddy. Jason. The Amityville Horror. The Exorcist. Pet Semetary. Graveyard Shift. Scary Movie. If there’s a chance something is standing behind a door – and there always is – I can’t watch it. Halfway through the movie “Signs” I started washing dishes. I almost saw “The Blair Witch Project.” Almost. I’ve never seen “Saw” … one, two, three or four. And don’t even get me started on Chucky. A demon-possessed doll? Who thinks up these things?

Let’s just say that when my kids asked to move the clown painting into the closet – facing the wall – I knew exactly where they were coming from.

The garbage disposal is my own personal scary movie. I have no idea what’s inside, but I know it is entirely unpleasant. I am not sure if it is the slimy food remnants, or the interlocking steel jaws designed to shred the food. It doesn’t really matter – either one makes me skittish. When something fell in there that shouldn’t my husband knew that his ask-for-no-help wife would gladly take a back seat.

No husband. No back seat.

“So, what happened at the end of the movie?”

He laughed and kissed the hand he was holding. “He died.”