A Hug From Daddy

The green slip-cover was thin.  The nubby texture of the original upholstery bled from underneath.  The room was small despite the warming September sun to lighten it.

It felt like I hadn't left it for weeks.  Bereavement cards scattered the desk's surface.

The TV was on to some placid children's show and Aubrey puttered around toys and books; her slippered two year old toes shuffling atop the waxed pine floor.

Careful not to trip over the area rug, she picked her foot up and held onto the rocking chair's spindles for balance.

Draped across the rocking chair was Rob's BDU shirt -- still starched.  I'd pulled it from his duffle bag -- the one his National Guard unit sent with the Major that was handling the loose ends -- whenever it was that I got it.

I pretended that time didn't exist anymore.  That I had full control over it now.  I could stop it and pretend my husband was still at Cape Cod doing his annual training for the Guard.  I could rewind it to play over the last conversation I had with him.  The one where I told him I was pregnant again.  And put into slow motion his jumping up and down.

Sometimes I selected scenes in the past of vacations we went on or words of love spoken in dark rooms; private jokes that sounded stupid to third parties.

I creaked forward from the couch and picked up his camoed shirt -- swirls of green, brown and tan memories.  I sniffed it and put it on, leaned back and pet the sleeves.  Was I touching him or he touching me?

"Mommy."  Aubrey's voice sharp contrast to Playhouse Disney.

"That's Daddy's."

Did she think I was stealing it, as her Daddy was stolen from her?  Did she think Rob would be mad at me for wearing his clothes?  Was she just stating the facts as she knew them to be true?  It was 'Daddy's'.  But not anymore.

"Would you like to wear it?"

I pulled it off and held it up to her.  She toddled forward, chubby fingers grasping.  I wrapped it around her pink fuzziness.  I was careful not to touch her two short pigtails, lest she remember they were there and pull them out again.

Aubrey turned for appraisal and then crinkled her eyes.

"Mommy, a hug from Daddy!"

Indeed.

My throat constricted and I held my breath so I would not cry.

I took her picture then; getting a hug from Daddy.

~September 2000~

"Going Back"

I'm a forward thinker.  I struggle to stay in the present, am usually thinking ahead five years, and rarely look backward.  I don't have time.  And I have little patience for myself when I spin to the past and lament or guilt about whatever.  But now I want to go back and am afraid.

Seven and a half years ago my husband died.  Unusual circumstances complicated my grief and I'm committed to writing about them.  But, I've tried -- without success -- for over six years.

At first my grief was too raw.  I spent days staring at the living room wall, and -- when I did go out -- avoiding friendly strangers at checkout counters and swim classes that didn't know he'd died and then asked about him.  I called credit card companies to cancel his cards and gave away some of his clothes to our family and friends.  But I couldn't throw away his toothbrush or the pregnancy test stick I'd peed on that evening before he died.

I couldn't write about it then; it was too painful.  So I waited and tried again later.  I tried again when I'd moved out of state and bought a new house.  I purged my emotions into wet clay vessels and my roommate watched my two year old and six month old when I ran around and around the block in my Saucony sneakers.  I watched the sun flash out from behind trees and counted the seams in the sidewalk.  The air was nippy and I composed words to write later.

But later was always later.  The words, when I wrote them, weren't what I wanted.  They didn't express how I found myself holding my breath for no particular reason.  They didn't articulate how it ached when I had to call my mom to tell of my infant's first laughter because I couldn't tell my husband.

And then I fictionalized it.  And a door opened.  I wrote of someone else's pain and mine lessened somehow.  But how would a novel help someone through their grief journey? Because that was what I meant it to be -- a book that helped someone else get over the throat clenching grief; the searing head pain; the bloody remains of a heart slashed to shreds.  And so I stopped because it was fiction, not really what was happening to me.

But now I need to begin again.  It is time to write my story. Our story.  But I have to go back to do that.  I need to re-open the wounds and examine the pain in all its concrete sensory detail. And I'm afraid.

I'm afraid of the pain that must accompany this trek.  I'm afraid of how I'll be with my family while I'm excavating my memories.  Who will care for my children while I'm in the past?  Who will be a companion to the man I'm married to now?  How will me going back to Before affect my relationships in Now?  Won't it hurt my new man to see me crying over the old?  Will it threaten the serenity and happiness we have?

My two year old is nine now.  She's in two choirs, loves Hannah Montana, "High School Musical", and horses.  She's in gymnastics class and tries to ignore her brother when he doesn't keep to himself.

The baby I found out I was pregnant with the night before my husband died is six and three quarters now.  Be sure to include the 3/4.  He's particular about that.  He whoops when he walks and is an expert scientist.

The man my children call "Dad" fed my son formula in bottles, changed his diapers and plays "Tickle Monster" with him now.  He cradled my daughter in his lap when she was little and reads to her at night still and they both call him "Big Hairy Guy" for laughs.

So, is it worth it to go back?  Could it shatter the Now?

This is perhaps why I have not written the story before now.  The potential for hurting the people that I care about is so monumentally in front of me.

Because what happens is this:  I remember a flash of memory and go to write it down.  While I'm there I fester and cling to shards of recollection and agonize over not the way things used to be but the things that will never be.  

And this is where the present gets tricky.  How do I stay pleased with the current shape of marital bliss while I'm lamenting over my dead husband never walking my daughter down the aisle at her wedding?

And then digressions bleed through that have nothing to do with anything.  Like, I struggled over saying "my" daughter.  I wanted to say "his" daughter.  But then flashed to "our" daughter.  But that couldn't be right because the man I'm with now -- the one that has raised her since she was three years old -- has adopted her.  So she's our daughter -- his and mine.  Not my late husband's.  Not anymore.  But how can I say that?!

Where does he go in my life now?  Where can he fit?  He must be allowed to stay in some form.

And so he does.  A black and white photo of him feeding my infant daughter hangs on our upstairs wall; a flower he gave me and I pressed long ago is framed and holds a place on our living room altar; and he lives on in my journal, my dreams and my memories.  And that is enough.  It has to be.

Sometimes the children and I light a candle on his birthday and sing for him, but I glance over at my current husband and wonder what he's thinking when we do this.

And so I am afraid to go back.

But I must.