Two

I want a cigarette. Bad. I’m sure I could scrounge up a pack if I looked hard enough.

I can taste it. It wouldn’t be menthol. He doesn’t smoke menthol. And it’d be short…much shorter than the ones I used to smoke. I would breathe deep. I’d fill my lungs and then feel the burn as smoke poured out of my nose.

I want a drink. Make mine a whiskey…cinnamon flavored whiskey and coke, please…on ice, of course. I want whiskey at 9:43 in the morning. I want to scorch the back of my throat as it slides down.

Cake would be good. Bakery cake with sticky white icing. A decorated cake…pink flowers…green leaves…no writing, please. And the inside should be yellow and spongy and leave gooey brown goodness on the bottom of the plate when you slice it.

Yesterday morning I looked at myself in the mirror as I dressed for work. My face, despite the artificial glow of carefully applied foundation, bore no expression. Good Morning America played softly in the background as the words “Happy New Year” came to mind.

Only it’s not happy. It’s not happy at all. Not that it’s not ever happy, there are happy days. But this day is not happy. So it’s a new year but not a particularly happy one… so far.

I hadn’t realized this before…this marking of the year that I do in my head. In a way it’s a relief as it serves to explain why January 1st has little to no meaning for me anymore. My year doesn’t begin and end at the same time as everyone else’s. My year ends on February 25th and begins again on the 27th…if I make it.

I leave the “if” in there because I need permission not to. On this day, more than any other, I grant myself permission to consider what would happen if I didn’t. Because, I don’t have to. No one does. Life is a choice we make every day. Someone else said that first, I know. Maybe that person, like me, experienced the capriciousness of life. Maybe they lost someone.

I don’t like to use the word “lost”. I didn’t lose Trey. He died. Actually, if anyone is lost, it’s me. I’m lost. More lost on some days than I am on others, but I’m always lost. I’m navigating a path I never thought to take. And yet, now that I am on it, I often try to imagine what would happen if I had to start all over again. What if I became even more lost? What if the thing that I never thought would happen happened again? Because that is the one thing I do know. The one thing I do know is that the worst does happen.

It’s a gray day, as it should be. It was this way last year, too. I suspect it always will be.

You can’t prepare. It hits you about a week out, without warning. Sadness covers you like a blanket. You feel the weight of it and you carry it around all day until, at last, you can close your eyes and escape. With any luck, sleep takes your blanket and leaves a respite in its place. It might last a day, two days. This year I was lucky, I had a few good days before the words “Happy New Year” appeared as though written in red lipstick on the mirror in front of me. And that was that.

Yesterday my boss’s face appeared over the top of my cubicle.

“Enjoy your time off tomorrow.”

Filled with irrational rage, I stood up and left the space without speaking. A big part of me hopes he realizes sometime today. That same part, the hurting part, the part that I’m allowing to run rough-shod over any and everything today and only today, that part hopes that he feels like a worm when he remembers.

It’s 10:43 now. I’m still in my bathrobe, my hair looks like shit, and I’ve never needed a mani/pedi more in my whole entire life. But, I’m not smoking and the half-empty can of Coke Zero on my desk remains untainted. The jury’s still out on the cake. My son and I are having lunch. He, too, is marking another year. He and my daughter-in-law are choosing the restaurant. I may choose to eat cake.

That’s what today is about; making choices and leaving room…deciding not to smoke, how to dress, what to eat, and whether or not to live. And, I’m leaving room…for tears, irrational emotions…and, quite possibly, cake.

Last First

Tonight, at 10:36 pm, exactly one year will have passed since I received the news that my son, Trey, was dead.

Within minutes I had my first conversation with a county coroner.

Within the hour, two policemen stood on my front porch. I’d never had policemen on my front porch before.

Two days later I wrote my first obituary.

And, the next day I designed a funeral program for the first time.

Five days after the call came in, I greeted the first guests to arrive at the first funeral I’d ever arranged for one of my children.

Despite never having done so before, my brother-in-law led the service beautifully.

Afterwards I hosted my first wake.

Friends and family, anxious to express their sympathy, appeared at my door; some for the first time.

Eight days after my son died, I returned to work from bereavement leave. I’d never taken bereavement leave before. I’d never been so bereaved.

A couple of days later I made my first request for a copy of my son’s death certificate.

The following Wednesday, my oldest son visited the sheriff’s department for the first time to collect his brothers “personal effects”.

Easter was the first family gathering that didn’t include Trey.

Several weeks later, we maintained our tradition of having a combined birthday party for both Trey and his older brother. For the first time, Trey didn’t attend.

Not since before my youngest was born had I celebrated Mother’s Day with just three children.

On September 1^st, I spent my birthday knowing that, for the first time, I could never have the only thing I really wanted.

For the first time in decades, I served Thanksgiving dinner without having to answer the question, “Are there any onions in here?”

As Christmas neared, I realized that for the first time in years I wouldn’t need to order that expensive chili water from Hawaii. I hadn’t anyone to give it to.

For the first time since 1997, I placed Christmas gifts for only three children under our tree and, during our Christmas party, no one visited the dessert table before dinner was served.

This past Sunday I didn’t watch The Oscars on television. It was the first time I’d missed watching since I was a kid. The last time I watched, I had to pause the show to answer the telephone. It was February 26^th at 10:36 pm.

Today is the one year anniversary of my son’s death.

There will never be another one year anniversary.

There will be another first.

This is the Last First.

Warm Whispers

I have a thing for sleepwear. I like cotton nightgowns, silk nightshirts and girly pajamas. I own six bathrobes; one of them purported to be “The Softest Robe Ever”. It’s soft, alright. It’s also very fluffy, and putting it on makes me feel like a lavender-hued Stay Puft Marshmallow Man. I hold on to it for those two or three days a year when the temperature dips so low that warmth trumps frump.

Two of my robes are girly. The silky peach one channels Hedy Lamarr. The sheer black one was an impulse purchase from a Victoria’s Secret catalogue. It has bright pink feathers at the collar and cuffs. I’ve never worn it. But you never know…

The red robe is short, made of cotton and features a very large dragon embroidered down the back. It’s one of my favorites. Depending on my mood while wearing it, I either feel like a prize fighter or a naughty Geisha.

The black one is heavy and hooded and used to belong to a man. It’s a Bill Blass. 1998 was a very good year.

The one I wear is flannel and plaid, tartan plaid, in blues and greens. I remember tearing open the Christmas wrap covering the box it came in, and looking around to see what my sisters’ robes looked like. For several years, since we all had married, my mother bought four of the same thing in different colors. One year it was sweaters. Mine was beige. Have you seen me? Well you can’t if I wear beige.

Blue and green are not my colors either. I’m more a red and black or, better yet, a turquoise and silver kind of girl. And plaid? Honey, please…

And yet, that’s the robe I wear. I take care to make sure it hangs on the outside of the hook so that in the morning, as I stumble out of my bedroom and into the bathroom, I can grab it without thinking.

This morning I noticed a hole…a slice really…in the back. The fabric around the slice was thin, very thin; thin enough to make me wonder if the slice wasn’t really a tear; a surrender to time. The discovery inspired me to inspect further. As it turns out, there are lots of holes, some of them bigger than others.

But, you would expect that in a 30 year old robe.

This morning, as I drew the robe around me, I felt her.

I imagined her hands on the robe, as she chose it, as she wrapped it, and the image comforted me.

“It’s going to be alright.”, Mom whispered. “You’ll be fine. He’s here with me, you know. Your boy is here with me.”

Birthday Boys

Looking back, I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have shared a pregnancy with than my friend, Dottie. She uses her grown-up name now. Everyone calls her Dot. But, I knew her when. I’ll always call her Dottie.

From the time we met, we shared lots of things. We shared stories and dreams and worries and fears. When Dottie had to pull (This would be the literal “pull”, not the figurative one.) her husband out of a local bar, I kept the baby. When my son dropped a crystal ashtray on his sister’s head, I called Dottie’s Dad for help. When Dottie’s mother held a Tupperware Party, she knew she could count on me to be there, and when the Datsun pick-up I’d paid $300.00 for wouldn’t start, Dottie gave me the keys to her Pontiac land-yacht.

I was pregnant with my third child. Dottie was carrying number four. We scheduled our prenatal appointments for the same time when we could. Rather than separate exam rooms, the clinic was comprised of one very wide corridor divided into curtained sections just big enough for the midwife, the exam table, and the stirrups. Were it not for those women wearing stethoscopes around their necks, one might have thought they had stumbled into the changing room at a maternity clothing store.

I was instructed to take off my “bottoms” and “hop up on the table” (This would be the figurative “hop”, not the literal one.) while the midwife called on Dottie who waited two curtains away. Resting my hands atop my mountainous abdomen, I tried not to eavesdrop until the words “no heartbeat”, at which point I stopped breathing in an effort to hear every word. My own heart raced as they scheduled the ultrasound that would reveal whether or not Dottie’s baby was alive. And when it came time for my exam, I both wished the midwife would hurry, and wondered how wrong it would be to ask questions. Dottie hadn’t asked many. It was as though she knew.

Her baby was fine, and mine was, too. They arrived just a month apart. Dottie’s son, Carey, was born in April, and my son, Josh, in May.

Three years later, I gave birth to a second son. He split the boy’s birthdays, arriving two weeks after Carey’s and two weeks before Josh’s. For the last twenty-nine years, April has been a time of celebration that began at Easter and ended , appropriately, with Mother’s Day.

Dottie lives in South Georgia now. She might say she could see Jekyll Island from her kitchen window, but that would be because she was trying to convince me to visit, not because she actually could see it. I’ve seen her just once in over ten years.

I did see Carey recently. He’s very tall and looks very much like his father. He celebrated his twenty-ninth birthday a couple of weeks ago, which means Trey’s birthday is this week…Saturday, to be exact.

Only Trey isn’t here to celebrate.

It hasn’t exactly sneaked up on me. It occurred to me in early March, just as it has for the last twenty-six years. It was just a few days after Trey’s memorial service. I hadn’t gone back to work yet. Josh was here and so was Jennifer. We talked about it. We planned it. Somewhere deep down I knew we had to.

And now I don’t want to. I don’t want to the way a toddler doesn’t want green beans. I want to scream. I want to cry. I want to scream while I cry and then I’ll stomp my feet and no matter what you say I won’t go. I won’t!

Because, he’s not here.

People say things like “He’s not gone. He’s always with you.”

No he’s not. He’s not here because I can’t hug him or smell him or hear him call me “Ma”. I never understood why he did that. No one else ever called me that, just him. He always called me “Ma”. And now no one ever will again.

Who will blow out the candles?

Unchosen

You don’t get many choices at birth. Nobody asks what you want to be. Take birth order, for example. I was the first-born of four girls. Given what I now know, I might have chosen to be born last, but nobody asked me. You don’t get to choose gender either, or hair color, or shoe size. Siblings, it seems, are left to chance. If you happen to click, that’s great! If not, you’re stuck with them, like them or not.

One of the best…maybe even THE best thing about aging is that the older you get the more choices you have. By the time you become an adult, you get to choose most things. You choose a career. You choose your lifestyle. Heck, you can even choose your hair color! By the time you get to be my age you might have chosen several different hair colors!

No one ever chooses to be the mother of a dead child.

And yet, here I am. It’s as though life started, for me, all over again on February 26^th just before 11 pm. All the other choices I’ve made take a back seat to the one no one would make, ever. Decades of living life on my own terms ended with a single gunshot, because no matter what else happens from here on out, I am the mother of a dead child.

I can sell my house and buy that loft I’ve had my eye on…the one downtown, right in the middle of everything. And, I’ll still be the mother of a dead child.

I can quit my job in order to pursue a life-long dream. And, I’ll still be the mother of a dead child.

I can learn a foreign language, lose 20 pounds, and even dye my hair the only color I’ve never tried. Then I’ll be the raven-haired mother of a dead child.

At a time in my life when who I am should be up to me, it’s not. Because, nothing I am matters as much as what I’ve lost.