No Happy Endings
Page 21
Chapter Forty
Yes, And
We take up two booths at the Waffle House. We’d take up more, but those are the last two tables available, so we pull up a high chair for Baby at one table, tack an extra chair to the end of the second table, and jam the kids in as close as they can fit to one another while still maintaining minimal arm function. Matthew and I join Aaron’s sister, Nikki, as perpetual servers. We pass plates back and forth across the tables, making sure that Ralph’s rejected hash browns end up on Gabe’s plate, that Josie’s extra ham makes it to Ian, that Ian’s extra waffle makes it to Sophie, and everyone’s scraps make it to Baby. Mae Mae and Opa are doing what grandparents do: pretending to follow along with seven different disjointed conversations about cartoons they’ve never seen, toys they’ve never heard of, and friends they’ve never met. When they have a moment to speak, they use it to heap praise upon each of their grandchildren, no matter how much syrup they’ve poured onto their plates or how many glasses of chocolate milk they’ve spilled.
These two tables are filled with people who used to be strangers and are now family.
My current husband, Matthew, does not love being called my current husband, but it’s the most accurate way to describe him. Saying “my husband” is true, but it doesn’t include the fact that my marriage to Aaron didn’t end just because he died of brain cancer. Though he’s the second man I’ve married, calling Matthew my “second husband” makes it sound like he’s a consolation prize. He is, however, currently my husband, and he is currently sitting next to my sister-in-law, Nikki. Nikki is not my biological sister or married to Matthew’s brother. Nikki is Aaron’s sister. She is feeding pieces of waffle to my baby; Mae Mae and Opa—Aaron’s parents—have brought belated Christmas gifts for Matthew’s oldest children, Ian and Sophie. Nikki’s daughter, Josie, is begging to carry Baby to the car. Nikki’s son, Gabe, is cutting Ralph’s waffle for him.
Ralph is licking the table, the coffee is God awful, and I am purely, completely happy. I also spent last night sleeplessly creeping from room to room in our Airbnb, checking to make sure that everyone in our family was still breathing (they were).
After Aaron’s funeral, when the temperatures in Minnesota took their annual dive below zero, I packed a suitcase for me and Ralph and headed to Nikki’s house in Arizona. In under four hours, Ralph and I had left the land of snowdrifts and pine for a world of dust and cactus. I marveled at this, as I stood on the sidewalk outside the Phoenix airport, holding our coats under my arm and sweating slightly. How mind boggling to think that on the same day, in the same country, we can experience an arid desert and an arctic prairie. Stranger, still, that life can and does unfold in each of them, each inhospitable in their own ways. What would freeze solid in Minnesota blooms steadily in Arizona. What would wither in the Arizona sun withstands the Minnesota cold. The shock of Aaron’s death had blown a gaping, invisible hole in the center of my being. Life may be continuing around me, but it would no longer continue within me. I was desert and frozen tundra. I was inhospitable to all of it.
My first trip to Arizona was meant to last a week, but when the day came to fly home, I didn’t go to the airport. Instead, I laid in Josie’s bed with Ralph until ten a.m., then joined Nikki on the back patio, where we sat in quiet while the kids played on the burned-out grass in their backyard. When noon struck, the white wine was cracked. After dinner, we sat in silence watching intellectually stimulating programs like Real Housewives of Orange County. Nikki’s husband, Andrew, hovered without interrupting us. He kept our glasses full and tucked in the children. There weren’t words to say or acts to complete, there was just the quiet comfort of being close to a person who loved the same person you did, who missed him as much as you do.
The first rule of Improv is yes. Well, yes, and . . . the and is important.
Yes is acceptance and acknowledgment of the reality you’ve been handed. If your stage partner says “I’ve made you a delicious dinner, with my grandmother’s famous pickled salamanders!” you don’t say, “No, you made me pork chops, which makes more sense and sounds more appetizing.” You pick up a fork, and . . .
When your husband dies, it feels like a ridiculous scene that has been thrust upon you by some obnoxious idiot, and it is. You did not get to choose this, but here it is, in all its horrifying glory. Yes is nothing but acceptance.
And is where the good part happens. The good part is a conjunction? You bet it is. Because and is about possibility and opportunity. And includes what is and makes room for what could be. And doesn’t require you to love the situation, or to like the situation; it just requires you to live.
My default reaction to Aaron’s death was not “yes, and . . .” it was “yes, but . . .”
“Yes, Aaron died, but please don’t pity me.”
“Yes, I’m a widowed mother, but I can’t talk about it deeply with anyone who loves me.”
“Yes, I’m very sad theoretically, but I can’t express it in any way.”
My expectations for what life and life with grief were supposed to look like put me constantly on the defensive: wanting to prove myself and my grief, wanting to hide it away. If and brings you possibility, but cuts it right off at the knees. I didn’t know that when I met Matthew.
“I love Matthew, but I’m in love with Aaron,” I told myself and anyone else who knew about the relationship.
“I love Matthew, and I love Aaron,” I should have said.
The change of three letters makes all the difference: in how that reads, in how it feels, in how it lives. Because but makes our hearts and possibilities so much smaller than they are. And is where it’s at.
And is where I am now.
And does not deny the past, or the pain. And makes room for it, in a way that but does not. And allows for the future, too.
And makes room for the multitudes included in all our experiences. And those two tables at Waffle House—our family—is full of and. Aaron’s parents are Mae Mae and Opa to all of our children. They love Matthew and they miss their son. Matthew’s oldest children have a life and a family at our house, and outside of it. It’s beautiful to watch Ralph be so loved and doted on by Matthew, and it’s tragic that he will never get to know Aaron.
Yes, I have a life I love, and a life I miss.
Yes, I am filled with happiness and gratitude, and with an eternal ache.
Yes, Matthew is my husband and the love of my life. And so is Aaron.
Yes, we have all been broken before. And yes, we could break all over again.
The years will roll on. More joy. More pain. More possibility. More yes. More and.
More.
Acknowledgments
This book is here because I did everything all on my own, as always, with no help from anyone. Thanks for nothing.
KIDDING!
This book is here because of Jess Regel and Julia Cheiffetz and Carrie Thornton. Because of Aaron Purmort and Matthew Hart and Dave Gilmore and Hannah Meacock Ross and Lindsay Wenner and Hans Buetow and Moe Richardson. Because of Ian, and Sophie, and Ralph, and Baby. Because of Mae Mae and Opa and Nikki and Andrew and Shari and Jim and Madame and Patrick and Austin and Meghan. Because of Steve McInerny.
This book is here because so many people—strangers, even!—gave a rip about me and my family and the work that I do. Because so many of you are living your own complicated life and love stories right now, and get it.
Thank you.
About the Author
NORA MCINERNY is a reluctant expert in difficult conversations. As the host of American Public Media’s Gracie Award–winning podcast Terrible, Thanks for Asking, Nora brings empathy and wit to tough subjects. Nora is a contributor to Elle.com, Cosmopolitan.com, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, Buzzfeed, Time.com, Slate, and Vox, where she’s often tapped for her essay pieces highlighting the emotional landscape and humor in complex topics, like the financial impacts of healthcare and grief in a digital age. She founded the nonprofit Still Kickin and the H
ot Young Widows Club, an online group of people who have lost their significant other.
Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.
Also by Nora McInerny
It’s Okay to Laugh
Copyright
These are stories about my life, told how I remember them. Sometimes I changed names, and sometimes I didn’t. If you remember these stories differently, good for you!
NO HAPPY ENDINGS. Copyright © 2019 by Nora McInerny. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
FIRST EDITION
Cover design by Jennifer Carrow
Digital Edition MARCH 2019 ISBN: 978-0-06-279242-6
Print ISBN: 978-0-06-279240-2
Version 02142019
About the Publisher
Australia
HarperCollins Publishers Australia Pty. Ltd.
Level 13, 201 Elizabeth Street
Sydney, NSW 2000, Australia
www.harpercollins.com.au
Canada
HarperCollins Canada
Bay Adelaide Centre, East Tower
22 Adelaide Street West, 41st Floor
Toronto, Ontario, Canada
M5H 4E3
www.harpercollins.ca
India
HarperCollins India
A 75, Sector 57
Noida
Uttar Pradesh 201 301
www.harpercollins.co.in
New Zealand
HarperCollins Publishers New Zealand
Unit D1, 63 Apollo Drive
Rosedale 0632
Auckland, New Zealand
www.harpercollins.co.nz
United Kingdom
HarperCollins Publishers Ltd.
1 London Bridge Street
London SE1 9GF, UK
www.harpercollins.co.uk
United States
HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
195 Broadway
New York, NY 10007
www.harpercollins.com
* “Dog mom” was my dead dad’s least favorite term but I’m not afraid to say that I am deeply in love with my dog and I don’t care who knows it!!!
* Opinions on things that aren’t related to politics, apologies to my many beloved elderly family members who I blocked on Facebook during the 2016 election.
* The answer is between five and ten, possibly more. Do not do this.
* Yet. I need this psychic to come through on that part of the prediction, and I would prefer not to hear the interpretation that she was telling me that I would be rich in immaterial goods. For all this stress, she could at least foresee some good old-fashioned monetary wealth, right??
* During the proofreading process, Matthew requested that I point out that one of his greatest regrets is being late for our first date. He would also like to point out that he has not been late for anything since then.
* Most people, including many children.
* Yes. This is not a thing.
* God would like to point out that she’s not in charge of every single thing that happens in our lives, and also she was focused on some other, big-picture things.
* Women throughout the history of the world raise their hands.
* It would be easier to just ask him, but he’s in the other room with noise-canceling headphones on.
* Turns out, you just had a ton of ear infections and couldn’t hear us at all! You’ve since gotten ear tubes and have said a lot more words, including “Mom.” Sorry, dude!