“We’ve seen enough!” she’d yell at me when I’d suggest we hit another landmark after a full day. “I don’t need to explore the entire city. I want to go back to the hotel!”
I felt in over my head with her emotions. I couldn’t keep up with her unpredictable moods. I’d carry food with me at all times, thinking that maybe she had low blood sugar. When she seemed content, I’d relax. When she seemed anxious or disinterested, I acted over-the-top to compensate. It wasn’t different because we were in Paris. In general, I wanted to protect her from any kind of upset, but I also wanted her to feel her feelings. She seemed angry at me and frustrated, while I felt like I was giving her everything I had to give.
I second-guessed my motives for traveling; maybe it would have been better to stay home, keep up our routine, get used to life without Joel. Was I projecting my own feelings and anxiety on to Sophie about being an only parent or was this typical teenage behavior? I checked in with her therapist many times and was assured that Sophie was doing fine, but these behavioral changes still concerned me.
I usually didn’t take my phone with us while we were out during the day, so I’d check my email and any messages when we got back to the hotel. I had promised Sophie that we would go back to the Eiffel Tower on our last night so that we could take some photos of it all lit up. But after another full day of exploring and eating, I was surprised to find that my phone was maxed out with messages from home. Our beloved Lucy was sick. She had seemed lethargic and down in recent weeks, and taking her to the vet was on my to-do list for when we returned. But my neighbor Roxanne was trying to reach me. Lucy had stopped eating. She couldn’t get up on her hind legs. Roxanne took Lucy to the vet, who said that Lucy was suffering. She was fifteen years old, and it was simply her time. It was true that Lucy was an older dog, but her heart, like mine and Sophie’s, was broken. She was confused as to why Joel suddenly disappeared. She didn’t seem to recover from losing him eight months ago.
Once again, I was faced with a decision. They could have given Lucy medication to keep her comfortable, but we wouldn’t be home for eight more days. I couldn’t bear to have her in so much distress for that long.
I called my mom, and she met Roxanne at the vet. She and Roxanne were there to comfort Lucy as she took her last breath. Sophie and I cried and hugged each other in our hotel room. We felt so far away, so helpless.
“She’ll get to see Daddy,” Sophie cried.
“I know!” I whimpered. “She’s so lucky!” Which made us laugh.
We couldn’t believe our year. At this point, Sophie had lost her dad. And now her fur-sister, Lucy. Everything seemed out of order and out of whack. I didn’t want to admit to Sophie my guilt over not being there for Lucy because I didn’t want Sophie to feel bad about our being in Paris. But I was guilt ridden—I should have taken her to the vet before our trip! I should have noticed she was in worse shape than I thought. We had only been gone for six days. What if I had made these plans for the end of summer instead of the beginning? Then we would have been home to take care of Lucy during her last hours.
And then a thought occurred to both Sophie and me. Maybe Lucy waited for us to leave to spare us another deathwatch. It sounded crazy. Lucy was a dog. How would she possibly orchestrate such a thing? But she was everything to us, as we were to her. She showed me how capable my heart was of expanding. She prepared me for Sophie.
We mourned Lucy in front of the Eiffel Tower that night. It gave both Sophie and me comfort to think that she and Joel were together. We also had a sense of humor about things. Death was something we were now quite familiar with. We had to laugh; our lives had become so ridiculous.
We left the next day for New York, where we’d be spending another week with my dad and Elisabeth and Holly and her kids in the Hamptons. Sophie and her cousins had a sibling-like bond that we all loved. They were all getting older, but with a three-year age range between them, they easily played together at the beach and in the pool. They put on shows for us after dinner, picked out movies to watch from the library. They took turns baking special treats with Grandma, while Grandpa “taught” them how to drive on the quiet backcountry roads. Our time together that summer was relaxed and familiar, but someone was missing. Particularly for Sophie and me, just like in Hawaii . . . and Chicago . . . and Paris. Our grief traveled with us.
I was dreading our return to Los Angeles.
I knew that without Joel and Lucy there to greet us, our house would seem even quieter. It was making me anxious. Sophie had a month before high school, and I wanted her to feel empowered and confident starting this new chapter. I tried to think of the things Joel would say to her or want to do with her, and I kept falling short. I just didn’t know!
Sophie would be attending an academically rigorous public high school forty minutes from home. She would be taking a bus to school, and we’d have to be at the bus stop by 7:00 a.m. each morning. This would have been Joel’s job. I questioned whether or not I should let the teachers know about her situation, that they’d have a new student who had recently lost a parent. While I had no problem announcing to the world that I was a widow!, Sophie was sensitive and self-conscious, and she wasn’t sure she wanted her teachers to know. Like so many things, I wish I could have discussed this with Joel.
I feared that every decision I made would be the wrong one, that every action would be too fast or too slow or too late or too soon.
I also had no choice.
I’ve heard of helicopter parents and tiger mom parents and even snowplow parents. I felt that I was becoming a Bubble Wrap parent, wanting to protect Sophie from any kind of upset, even if the worst thing that could happen was already behind her. Of course, I failed miserably at this. She was a fourteen-year-old girl, and all the drama that comes along with that was out of my hands. There was social drama and school drama and family drama, and, oh yeah, her father had died. I knew Sophie’s life was hers to live, no matter how hard I wanted to protect her.
“I think it may be time for you to start sleeping in your own room again, Smoosh,” I told Sophie when we were back in Los Angeles.
She looked at me like she did when she was four and Joel and I had told her it was time to stop using her pacifier.
“Starting tonight?” she asked.
“Well,” I said, “I just think that, you know, you’re starting high school soon. We’ll still do our reading and memory of Daddy every night—”
“I’m sort of . . . over that,” she said carefully.
“Oh,” I said. “I think it’s important. It’s hard to remember him sometimes. Hearing your thoughts helps me.”
She looked at me. “I keep saying the same thing over and over. I feel like I don’t remember that much so it makes me sad to try to think of something new.” I felt the same way. Joel was starting to feel further away. Our memories were receding.
Joel was vegan for a second, right? Or was considering it, yes? He stopped eating red meat when Sophie did, but when did he stop eating chicken? And when he rode his bike to work, that was the summer he’d also race up the hills in the neighborhood, wasn’t it? Or was that when he still had his office in Hollywood?
Sometimes it’s the order of things that trips me up . . . Did we buy that fancy blender before Joel was diagnosed with MS? Did we go to that party downtown for our anniversary, or was it around the holidays? If I could hardly remember these things, how could I expect Sophie to? How could I honor Joel and give her a complete picture of who her dad was if I couldn’t even remember when or if he was ever vegan? I wanted her more than anything to remember the feeling of Joel. It’s one of the worst things about grief that no one prepared me for. You start to forget things about the people you love.
Joel hadn’t even been gone a year. We were still living our year of firsts. We had experienced Thanksgiving and Hanukkah and the New Year. Sophie’s birthday, Mother’s Day, Sophie’s middle school graduation, Father’s Day. All without Joel. These things happened. We made plans
, got ourselves dressed, showed up. I just don’t know how.
His fifty-first birthday was approaching. I thought it was the perfect time to celebrate Joel in the same way we would have if he were alive. A party with Joel’s favorite people, favorite music, in his favorite spot, our backyard. I invited everyone who would have been invited to Joel’s birthday as if he were still alive and making the guest list himself. I then asked some of his friends to speak, to share their memories of Joel.
They all spoke of Joel’s kindness and empathy. Agreed that he was a mensch of the highest order. One even acknowledged that seeing Joel interact with Sophie inspired him to have children of his own. Of course, they all talked about Joel’s eclectic taste and knowledge of music. They admitted that they couldn’t watch a Dodgers game without thinking of him. Joel was a good, caring friend with no pretense, no ego, and they were grateful to have known him.
Like with shiva, our house was full of friends that night. Seeing people who knew and loved Joel, hearing their stories, sharing our memories, all of these things kept Joel close and alive.
Sophie did sleep with me the night of Joel’s birthday party. We read from our book of healing and shared a new memory, as we had done for the previous 260 nights.
“Tonight was nice,” she said. “Daddy had a lot of friends.”
I hugged her tight and said, “And a lot of people who loved him.”
EIGHTEEN
Widowish
The first time I brought Marcos to a party, almost nine months after Joel died, a woman I knew from the neighborhood pulled me aside and said, “You’re here on a date? Wait, when did your husband die again?”
The fact that I even went to a party, let alone with Marcos, was a big deal. That this exchange happened within five minutes of arriving had me feeling numb. I was a mix of nervousness and excitement being out in public with Marcos, but I didn’t expect to feel so judged.
When I got the invitation to Mimi’s birthday party a few weeks earlier, I called to tell her that I might bring someone with me.
“Sure!” she said. “Anyone you’d like; that’s great!”
“I’ve . . . kind of been seeing someone. Someone you know.”
“Oh my God, who?”
I took a deep breath and said, “Marcos.”
She immediately started to laugh. Marcos taught guitar to both her kids. He was helping Mimi’s daughter record songs for a demo she was making with her band.
“You know,” she said. “I can see it, the two of you. The whole music connection.” I could tell she was thinking it over. I could also tell she had a smile on her face. “I just can’t wait to tell Paul!” she said, referring to her husband.
And that’s how it started, my breaking the news to people that Marcos and I were dating. We’d be going to a party, and it would be our debut, in a way. I wanted my friends to be prepared to see me with someone other than Joel.
I devoted most of my time to Sophie that summer, but since we returned from our summer travels, Marcos and I had made a few plans that didn’t necessarily include rushed time between the sheets.
Sophie still didn’t know about him. I was still very much in mourning, and I didn’t want Sophie, or anyone, to think that because I was dating Marcos, I missed or loved Joel any less. It would be a lot for my fourteen-year-old to understand even though I felt guilty keeping this from her.
When it felt “safe,” Marcos would sometimes drive to my house, and we’d walk down to the boulevard for lunch or for drinks. He would often sing that Billy Joel song “Uptown Girl” when he saw me dressed for our date and in my end of the neighborhood.
“I see you now,” he’d say if I was ordering a salade Niçoise and a glass of chardonnay. “I get your vibe.”
He thought that I was “refined,” and I liked that he would take me to his favorite Peruvian restaurant where the ceviche and lomo saltado were served on paper plates.
When I asked him if he was concerned about my being a widow—being too clingy, or too distant, or actively missing my husband, which I was—he’d say, “Sweetheart, I’m the man for the job.”
I was more relaxed around him now, not as self-conscious as I had been originally. We would hold hands, and it felt nice to be out with him. Our relationship was evolving from a fling to a thing.
By now I had also told Ellie, who, when she met Marcos in his jeans and T-shirt, guitar in hand, said, “Well, he’s not like the other dads.”
My married neighbor Roxanne, who knew him through the food pantry, told me, “Oh, I’m in love with him, honey. If you don’t date him, I will.”
My friends who knew about Marcos were happy for me because they saw that I was lighter. They didn’t worry about me as much. They liked that I wasn’t alone and had someone to lean on.
A few friends, though, particularly those I knew through Joel, weren’t thrilled. One husband seemed personally affronted by my new relationship. He thought it was too soon, and while he never said it out loud, I think he found it disrespectful. I tried to put myself in his shoes, tried to understand why it felt so personal to him.
Maybe I should slow down, I thought. Put on the brakes, spend less time with Marcos and more time grieving Joel. Only, I was still grieving. Marcos was a salve to all my sadness.
He asked a few times if it would be OK for Sophie to join us for a meal. I liked that he wanted to include her, but it felt a little too much, too soon. I had no one to ask for advice. This, like so many only parent/young widow situations, was unchartered waters in my friend group. Even Allison couldn’t offer the counsel I was looking for. “I can’t believe it!” she’d say with a groan. “Joel’s been gone a minute, and Brad’s been gone four years. It’s taking me forever to meet someone.”
I was starting to feel compelled to tell Sophie about Marcos. A friend suggested that I use the word date. She thought this would soften the blow since a date seemed noncommittal and kind of casual. That didn’t seem right to me, but I was at a loss. I didn’t trust myself to just tell Sophie the truth. That Marcos and I had been seeing each other, plain and simple. But once I decided to tell her, I had to tell her immediately, like a confession. I was also a little giddy, the way one gets when in a new relationship.
I was on the phone with Jillian in my home office. “I’m going to tell Sophie about Marcos the minute we hang up. It’s time, don’t you think?”
“Yes, it’s probably good that she knows. Especially now that you’re telling people about him.”
“And I’m going to that party with him next weekend. I just don’t want her to hear it from someone else.”
“Yeah, tell her. Then call me after and tell me what happened.”
“OK,” I said.
I put down my phone and heard Sophie in the kitchen.
“Smoosh?” I called to her. “Come in here for a sec?”
She came to the door. “What’s up?”
I didn’t prepare what to say and was so intent on telling her that very second that I just blurted it out.
“You won’t believe it,” I said. “Remember your guitar teacher, Marcos? He asked me out on a date!”
It was clumsy; my delivery was all wrong. It came out too fast.
Sophie stood in front of me and burst into tears. At the most, three seconds had elapsed. Her feelings were so raw, so immediate. Tears weren’t just sliding down her cheeks, they were pouring. She turned red and started screaming, “That’s disgusting! He knew Daddy! It’s not right, Mom! You can always have another husband, but I’ll never have another dad! I hate you, and I hate him!”
I tried to interject with “But I like that he knew Daddy!” and “Daddy’s still my husband!” but I could barely get the words out. She stormed off, distraught, upset, angry.
I closed my eyes and sat there, my heart racing. I heard her bedroom door slam shut. If I felt bad about keeping this from her before, I felt even worse now. How could I have been so stupid? So careless? So thoughtless? I sat there crying.
; I’m ruining Sophie’s life!
I’m the worst mother in the world!
I can’t do this alone!
I considered calling things off with Marcos, waiting to start dating until Sophie was in college. I sat in my office, searching for clarity by whispering to Joel.
I’m sorry, hun.
I fucked up, Joel.
I’m so sorry.
I kept waiting for Sophie’s breakdown. I kept thinking that she was going to fall apart at some point, with the realization that Joel was forever gone. She was quiet about her grief, more private than I was. But this breakdown she was having was at my doing. I was the one causing this pain and I couldn’t bear it.
And then I thought of Iyanla. She says asking for help and offering gratitude will help in any kind of crisis. I tried so hard to do both.
What do I do?
What should I do?
Thank you for telling me what to do!
But I didn’t know who “you” was.
I couldn’t get my mind to slow down. I had read somewhere that sometimes the best thing to do in a crisis is nothing. Nothing was about all I could handle. I was exhausted. I was sad. I was so angry with myself.
I went to my room, undressed, washed my face, and got in bed. I lay on my back, one hand on my heart, one on my belly. I inhaled deeply, exhaled deeply. I tried to make my mind quiet, but my heart felt so heavy. I got still and just kept breathing.
Inhale . . . exhale . . . inhale . . . exhale.
My mind slowed down. I thought of Joel. He’s who I needed in that moment. I exhaled deeply and whispered to him.
Hun, I said. I’m losing my mind, and I miss you. I don’t know how I can live in this world without you.
I took another breath.
I’m seeing Marcos. I kind of think you know that. Do you? Are you OK with it?
I was crying now.
I’m worried about Sophie. I need you here for her. I will be OK, I’m stronger than I thought. But Sophie needs you. I’m not enough for her on my own. I don’t know how I’m going to do it.
Widowish: A Memoir Page 16