In the middle of all of this, my mom comes over. She can tell I am frustrated. She offers to take the dogs for the night and bring them back in the morning.
While she is over, I take a shower and have a curl-up-in-fetal-position-on-the-shower-floor moment. As the water steams around me, I stare at the handles. The hot and cold are completely in line with each other and the shower handle is sticking straight up. I feel like saying a prayer, but I am too angry for a prayer. I have been praying a lot lately, although I still am not quite sure about God or prayers. When I pray at night, I don’t fold my hands or even close my eyes. I don’t even address anyone, because I am never quite sure to whom I am talking or if anyone is even listening at all. But everyone is praying for me, so the least I could do is pray for other people.
So there I am sitting in the shower, staring at the handles, but instead of bowing my head (which I never do anyway), I just start talking to the handles. They look like little messengers. The middle handle, pointing straight up, a microphone to the heavens.
“This is not a request,” I start off saying. “This isn’t a question or a favor. This is a statement. I need someone to take those dogs. I can no longer provide them with a good home. It’s hurting me, it’s hurting them, and anything that hurts me hurts Kai.”
I pause for a moment, as if the bathtub handles are conferencing about my request. I look up at them again.
“You know, I’ve never said this, but I think I deserve this one. I think I’ve had a hard enough time. I think you can do this for me.” I pause and then make serious eye contact with the middle shower handle. “You will do this for me.” I get out of the shower and call Jason the dog trainer. Over a voice mail, I tell him I need some help.
That night, I have a dream. In my dream I am sitting up in bed feeding Kai. It was the same pose I had held an hour earlier with Kai before I fell asleep. It was the same scene, but in the dream I am looking at our reflection, Kai and myself, in the opposing window. When I am awake rocking Kai in my bedroom, sometimes I look at my reflection in my window. I always look a little ghostly. I sometimes think that if I look hard enough, I can see Josh’s face, just looking at me through the window.
In the dream I can see my reflection in the window from my bed while I hold Kai. And then, just as I had pictured it in real life, I see the image of Josh in the window sort of come out from behind me. In the dream, all I can see is the reflection. I have no sense to look next to me to see if he is there. He appears and he doesn’t float like a ghost. The picture of him is not incredibly clear. For a brief moment, he appears. He doesn’t say anything, he just does this one swift movement. He takes his right arm and raises it above his head and sort of flexes it, his hand is balled in a fist. I know exactly what this movement means. Anyone who knew Josh, if they could see it, they would know what it meant. It was the same motion he made when Pavel Datsyuk scored a goal for the Detroit Red Wings or when he watched the Glasgow Rangers or Manchester United. I can see him doing it right now. It’s his gesture for cheering someone on. I know what he is saying, but doing this motion, this one sweep with his arm, is more effective than talking to me. This is all he has to do, and I know what he means.
I wake up. You’d think I would wake up out of breath, amazed, unable to fall back asleep. But I don’t. At first I hardly remember what happened. Once I realize the dream, I just feel calm and confident. I check on Kai, his sleeping angel face, and I fall back asleep.
The next day Jason calls me back. We have a long talk. He says that he will do anything to help me, it is the least he could do. He doesn’t think it will be hard to find a new home for the dogs, especially somewhere in a more rural area. He says he’ll be downstate next week and can pick them up then.
I don’t think Josh is running around answering my prayers. Although, if he could, if there was any way he could intervene with my life, he would. Maybe he did. But I am still too skeptical to admit that Josh heard me and helped me.
All I know is that yesterday I came close to losing my mind. I know that a lot of women with children say this, but I mean it. I came close (I’m still close) to going crazy. Right at the moment where I wanted to give up, to call my parents and say, “Come take care of me and my son because I can’t,” just when I thought no one could help me with my dogs, I had this dream. It doesn’t matter if Josh actually tried to send me a message or if my own subconscious saved me. All I can see is his face and his arm and his closed fist. He’s not sad or mad or angry. He’s just looking at me and rooting for me like I’m about to win the Stanley Cup. Like he’s proud of me. He’s proud to wear my jersey, even at my worst moment. He’s elbowing the guy next to him. “That’s my wife,” he says. I’m his wife and he knows I can do this.
In the “King’s Cross” chapter in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, after Harry has his long conversation with Albus Dumbledore, Harry looks at Dumbledore’s twinkling blue eyes and says, “Tell me one last thing. Is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?” Dumbledore says, “Of course it is happening inside your head, Harry, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?”
I feel like I read that chapter six months ago to prepare me for the dream I had last night. I can’t quite say if Josh and J. K. Rowling and Albus Dumbledore and the handles on my shower and me are all spiritually connected. I do know that this morning I woke up and I did not feel the need to sit on the floor of the shower again.
A week later Jason comes over and picks up the dogs. Part of me feels hugely disappointed in myself. They have to leave because I am making them, and I am making them leave because I couldn’t pull it together. Growing up, if there was one thing my dad never allowed us to do, it was back out of a commitment. Joining the softball team, playing the flute, writing for the yearbook staff. I vividly remember wanting to quit all of these things and being told I couldn’t. I had to stick with it until the end. But here I am quitting. I am giving up. I am ashamed of this. This goes against how I was raised to resolve problems. But even with that sense of shame, I am hugely relieved in their departure. I hate to say that even more. I am ashamed that I gave up on something and I am more ashamed that giving up is going to make my life easier. But I can’t put this back together the way it was. I can’t make this work.
• • •
While out shoveling the driveway I slip on some ice. For a second, I think I am going to fall, but then I catch myself. How horrible, I think, if I fell and hit my head and died, just like Josh. Then my mind starts to wander about what would happen when I got to heaven.
Shortly after Josh died, I had a lot of moments in which I didn’t want to be alive. I was never suicidal, and it wasn’t even that I wanted to leave my family or friends, but I just wanted so badly to be with Josh. I even thought about it in my head as a sense of sympathy I had developed for Romeo and Juliet. I was going to write about how I felt for them. It’s not that I wanted to die, but I just suddenly knew where they were coming from. That’s how badly they wanted to be together.
But as I catch myself from falling, I realize that I feel totally different from the days of sympathy for Romeo and Juliet. It is because of Kai. I don’t want to die solely because I cannot leave my son. The thought of having to be without my son is more immense and powerful than I ever imagined.
If I hit my head today, I would get to the gates of heaven and go insane. I would trash the place in a screaming fury. I would throw chairs through glass doors. I would knock the clipboard out of the receptionist’s hand. I would take every pile of papers and splatter them across the room. “I don’t belong here, you fucking assholes!” I would yell as I kicked over desks and smashed harps. I would destroy the place. Not out of anger, but out of pure desperation to get back to my son. “You screwed up again! I DON’T BELONG HERE!” I would scream. “What kind of fucking morons do you have running this place! SEND ME HOME!” I would look crazy. My hair would be everywhere. I would be doused in sweat. Then they would bring Josh out and they
would say, “But he’s here. Didn’t you say you wanted to be with him? Didn’t you say you wanted to be where he was?” I would look Josh straight in the face, I mean a real solid stare, and without hesitation I would say, “No. I don’t want to be here.” The words would sit in the empty space like a heavy load, like a punch in the face. Josh would just stare back, not knowing how to respond. “Now send me home.” They would look at each other, and they would check their files and ask me again, “Now, ma’am, you’re sure. You’re sure you don’t want to be with him. You can. He’s right here. You can stay. We’d like you to stay.” And the whole time they were talking, Josh and I would be staring at each other. But he would hardly recognize me. My chest would be heaving from the destructive rage. I would be taller than he had remembered. I would look more confident, stronger than when he had left me. I would be looking at him with angry eyes. He would be looking at me, trying to figure out what was going on. “Yes, I am sure,” I would say slowly, so everyone knew I was certain. “I do not want to stay here with him. Send me back to my son.” They would shrug at each other. “Okay, you heard the lady. You’re free to go.” Without another word, I would turn and march out. On my way out I would shove little old St. Peter right in the chest, a one-handed, fuck-you-asshole shove. And Josh would stand there, completely bewildered. The guys working in the office would say, “Sorry, man, we didn’t mean to set you up to hurt your feelings.” Josh would stare off to where I had just stood, and finally it would hit him. “No,” he would say, “that’s why I married her.”
I am taking stock right now at this moment. I do feel better and I know exactly when it happened. When my son smiled at me, when he was able to communicate his approval and love, that’s when something fused in my brain. At that moment, motherhood body-slammed wifehood and deemed herself to be bigger, stronger, and downright more important. My FMG sits on the stoop of my house in her puffy winter coat and nods in approval. She doesn’t judge me for imagining myself pummeling a religious figure in defense of my son. She shrugs her shoulders and explains it’s a primal instinct. “And,” she adds, “motherhood is all primal instinct.”
• • •
I am catching up on my podcasts of This American Life. The episode from the end of December is titled “Home Alone.” The last story, the most intriguing story, was about a woman who was held hostage in her own home with her two children.
For a while I’ve been thinking about the idea of a new year. Who was I last year? At one point I was married, then I was married and pregnant, then I was widowed and pregnant, and then I was a widowed mother. I can’t help but be a little nervous as I wind up to face another year. All throughout January, part of me has been thinking, God, I wonder what horrible things will happen this year. “Home Alone” comes at me at just the right time.
Ira Glass introduces the last story as “when the scariest thing possible actually happens.” Of course, I find this intriguing. I thought that was my situation.
A young mom named Ezra had married a man named Raymond. They lived in a two-bedroom apartment in New Jersey. When they got married, Raymond was earning an honest living selling jewelry. Years later, a family member got him involved in dealing cocaine. The job change had affected their relationship for obvious reasons. Ezra and her daughter, who at the time was in kindergarten, tell the story. Raymond had been gone for several days, but the daughter remembers nothing about her parents having a damaged relationship, nor did she ever suspect her father was a dealer. One day a man came to the door asking for Raymond. Ezra said he wasn’t home and she had no idea when he would be back. The man said Raymond owed him money and he was not leaving until Raymond showed up. He then showed her his gun. After a phone call to his “boss” in Florida, the man told her that she and her children would be killed if Raymond didn’t show up.
Ezra tells the story confidently, although she reveals that at the time she was scared to death. But she did not show one hint of fear to the gunman or to her children. She told her children that their dad’s friend was staying with them for a few days. The kids didn’t think anything of it. After a few days of fearing for her life, Ezra realized she had to come up with a plan. Ezra started dropping hints to the gunman that she had connections with the mafia and the police force. Both were lies, but the gunman bought it. She overheard him on the phone with his boss saying he didn’t feel safe. She had the upper hand. Finally, Raymond came home and settled up with the gunman. Before leaving, the gunman profusely apologized to Ezra and begged that she didn’t send her “family” after him. Ezra said this was the moment when she thought, Damn I’m good.
Ezra admitted that this event changed her. Nothing fazed her after this. She became fearless when confronted with all situations. Her daughter tells another story that took place after Ezra’s metamorphosis. Ezra, who was five foot two, worked as an insurance agent. One day an angry client stormed in and started yelling at Ezra. He became so enraged that he threatened bodily harm to her. In response, Ezra calmly stepped out from behind her desk and said, “Well … have at it.” The man left and never bothered her again.
I am inspired by this story, obviously. Who wouldn’t be? Another mom going into survival mode and coming out victorious. I always think that I’ve got the worst situation on the planet, but I don’t. And who cares about who has it worse? The best part of the story is how Ezra, despite her stress, fear, and angst, was able to convince her children that everything was okay. Day in and day out she went on as if everything was normal and in doing so she protected her children from a horrifying situation. Every day they went off to school laughing and playing and never suspected that their lives were in danger. A situation that could have landed them in therapy for years was averted because their mother made a choice to handle it. That’s how I want to be. I want to be Ezra.
With all of this in mind, I consider how I want to live this year. In this past month I’ve confronted the new year tired with bags under my eyes, my shoulders hunched forward. I’ve crossed the threshold of the new year wearing my blue bathrobe, my sweatpants, my slippers, my hair a mess, my eyes watery, my arms and legs weak. I hold Kai, cradled in my arms, but I am hardly able to lift him anymore. My motto: “I can’t take another day, let alone another year.”
But I don’t have to be Gregor Samsa. Gregor woke up one morning and found himself a bug. Something happened to him and he had no control over the results. Something happened to me too, but that doesn’t mean I have to lose my identity. I can control my metamorphosis.
After listening to Ezra, I have a new image. It’s the image I want to take on this year. I see myself with war paint on my face, my hair tied back in a tight ponytail. I am wearing a camouflage Under Armour sports bra as my muscles bulge from underneath. Kai is thrown over my shoulder and he laughs at the chaos that surrounds us. I have a machete between my teeth, and a pack on my back that holds a bow and arrow, a Buck knife, wipes and diapers. I look determined, strong, bold, and fearless. My motto: “Well … have at it.”
february
Picnic, Lightning
Billy Collins
“My very photogenic mother died in a freak accident (picnic, lightning) when I was three.”—LOLITA
It is possible to be struck by a meteor
or a single-engine plane
while reading in a chair at home. Pedestrians
are flattened by safes falling from
rooftops mostly within the panels of
the comics, but still, we know it is
possible, as well as the flash of
summer lightning, the thermos toppling
over, spilling out on the grass.
And we know the message can be
delivered from within. The heart, no
valentine, decides to quit after
lunch, the power shut off like a
switch, or a tiny dark ship is
unmoored into the flow of the body’s
rivers, the brain a monastery,
defenseless on
the shore.
This is
what I think about when I shovel
compost into a wheelbarrow, and when
I fill the long flower boxes, then
press into rows the limp roots of red
impatiens—the instant hand of Death
always ready to burst forth from the
sleeve of his voluminous cloak. Then
the soil is full of marvels, bits of
leaf like flakes off a fresco,
red-brown pine needles, a beetle quick
to burrow back under the loam.
Then
the wheelbarrow is a wilder blue, the
clouds a brighter white, and all I
hear is the rasp of the steel edge
against a round stone, the small
plants singing with lifted faces, and
the click of the sundial as one hour
sweeps into the next.
as I rush from Kai’s bedroom to heat up a bottle, I catch a glimpse of a splotch of jelly on the floor. The splotch is about the size of a quarter. It’s been there for a few days, I can’t quite remember how long. I know how it got there because the other night I was eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich for dinner while I was holding Kai and I spilled this little bit on the way to his room. I’ve been meaning to clean it up, but I just haven’t gotten to it. It sounds ridiculous when I say this. How have I not had the three minutes it takes to clean up this jelly? Clearly, I’ve had three minutes in two days, but it’s still there. When I do find three minutes, I don’t rush to clean it up. I don’t really care that there’s dried jelly on the hardwood floor. Just like I don’t really care that I pull my hair back in a sloppy ponytail every day and hardly brush it. Why clean it up? Why use a hairdryer? I have half a mind to buzz my hair. My FMG tells me I’m not allowed to shave my head. She says she needs to see a signed note from my therapist first.
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