Traces of You

My Dearest Love,

Almost two years after you left on your journey, I am still coming across little bits of you. Today I was cleaning out the closet in the guest room in preparation for a pickup by the Lupus Society. As I was pulling coats and jackets out of the closet, laying them out on the bed for photography, and folding them away in plastic bags ready to be picked up, I came across a little treasure trove of you.

I know that I must check all of the pockets of your clothes to collect the pieces of tissue paper you hoarded away there. I was not disappointed in my quest either, but in addition to the wadded up kleenix in one of your jackets, I found two of your inimitable lists that you could not live without.

They were shopping lists for the mundane necessities of our lives - milk, bread, eggs, TP, and so on. There are no dates on the lists, nothing to tell me where we were living or what store you were intending to buy the goods at. It might have been B.C. because on one of the lists, in the lower right hand corner, there were some menu items that never would have flown with the larvae. Things like "lentil burgers," and "pheasant soup."

There was another clue in the same pocket as the lists. It was a deposit slip from a bank and it WAS dated - August 31, 1987. We had been married one year and two weeks and were living in the slums in that lower duplex with the cockroaches and the crazy neighbors. Either that or we had just moved across the river to the quieter town and lived in that shotgun apartment with the crazy neighbors. I can't remember anymore when we made that shift.

I am always surprised at how emotional I get when things like this happen. Two years now and finding something like these little scraps of paper takes me back twenty years when our lives were so very different. I will have more of these moments as this summer progresses, as I slowly pack up the house in the woods and move things bit by bit up north to the place where I grew up on the shores of the great inland sea.

I will touch everything that you and I and our two children have made a part of our lives. Things squirreled away from our last move and never unpacked. All of the things put in the kids "save" boxes such as drawings from their earliest days of school. Just now, I came across two boxes up on the shelf in the guest bedroom closet, tucked away far over in the corner where they were hard to reach. The first one I wiggled down was still taped from our move to this house seven years ago. It said "baby things" on the outside.

When I slit the sealing tape and took off the lid, there was the little knit hat that our son wore home from the hospital. There was one hand knit bootie. There were several hand knit baby blankets. I stood there feeling quite helpless. How was I supposed to deal with this? This was so outside of my experience and comfort zone. I stood, staring at this box of baby memories for several minutes trying to decide whether they should go in the give away pile or not. I know there are many babies out there who need lovingly made blankets, but somehow, I could not make that separation. Without trying to go deeper into my self analysis, I put the treasures back into the box and carefully placed them back up on the shelf where they will be when I move them next to go with us in our next life.

This is the first time I have moved without you since we met all those lifetimes ago. I miss you.

Stages

My Dearest Love,

It has been twenty-three months since you left on your mysterious voyage. We miss your presence greatly - me especially as I am embarking on a path in life that calls out for your wisdom and expertise. I am learning in my halting way, but I will never be as adept as you in these areas.

Sometimes I think you sit above me watching and yelling at me and throwing ghost fruit when I do something particularly bone-headed. Since I can't hear you, I wear an imaginary bracelet that says "WWCD" just like those cheesy ones you see everywhere announcing someone's pledge to support a cause or declare a religious stance. But mine is invisible so it is only I who know that I ask myself what would you do.

I asked myself that late last night. I was in one of those parental hot spots where a mistake could have unforeseen consequences that would ripple forward in time. I needed you last night.

Two days ago, our daughter injured herself when she made a bad landing on a practice vault. She came home on crutches, unable to put weight on her right knee. Yesterday, she stayed home from school after fainting in the shower. Fortunately, no further damage was done in that incident, but later I took her to the doctor who then sent us on for an MRI. The results were as bleak as the weather - gray, sodden, and forlorn.

She tore her ACL completely apart. She partially tore her meniscus. She also seriously strained her medial collateral ligament. She will require surgery and a long recovery time that will cap her senior year in high school. When I gave her the news outside the MRI place she just crumpled and cried while I held her in the rain. She hurt in every way possible. Her track season is over.

Yesterday afternoon was pretty sad. I did what I could to raise her spirits, but visions of being wheeled across the stage for graduation and sitting on the sidelines in her prom dress while every one else marches in the Grand Parade just drained the spirit out of her. She spent most of that time in bed, alone in her misery.

I made her get up for dinner which turned out pretty well. She announced that her boyfriend, her prom date, was coming over after dinner. Because of the events of the last few days (me needing to drive her car on Thursday due to the incontinence of the White Whale and then the pole vaulting injury) he was thwarted in all of his intricate plans to deliver his prom invitation to K. Therefore, he was coming over and doing the old fashioned way - face to face.

He came bearing gifts. There were the balloons, flowers, and a rubber chicken that shot an egg out of its bottom when you squeezed it. That was a little obscene if you ask me.

I graciously retired to my bedroom so that they could talk in private. And talk they did. About the time I was ready to lock up the house and go to bed, I found them in her room on the lower level. They were both lying down on her bed. I suggested that it was time to go now and left. Kate hobbled out after me to plead for an extension.

She said that he didn't have to get back home until 1 AM on weekend nights and couldn't he please just stay a while. I told her that I didn't feel comfortable with both of them laying in bed together. She looked at me with one of those "what? you don't trust me?" expressions and then told me that even if they wanted to do something, she was incapable due to her injury.

It had been a bad day for sure and I didn't want to add to it, so I turned away and went back to my room. About midnight I made another foray downstairs. Our son was asleep with his door closed. I turned toward K's room. It was dark, but they were not asleep. I stood there listening to the unmistakable sound of a young woman on her way to an orgasm.

Shit. Now what?

I stood there with all kinds of crazy thoughts running through my head. In the end, I decided to quietly go back up to my bedroom and do my thinking there. Listening in was just too damn weird.

In my room, I tried to logically sort through my options and come to some kind of plan. As I lay there in the dark, I ran through a lot of scenarios - many of them totally insane. At 1 AM, I heard K clomping through the upper level on her crutches, turning out lights as she went. I was still struggling with my conundrum and listening to the rain when sleep over took me.

This morning, I resumed my pondering. I decided that number one, K is now of legal age and needs to make her own decisions. Number two, she has a prescription for birth control pills with my approval. Number three, if she is going to take a lover, I would rather have them here, safe, than sneaking away for a quicky in the back seat of a car or a slimy motel. Number four, it is me who is uncomfortable with this. K, when she rose this morning was happy and chipper. I have to deal with this discomfort because it is mine.

And on that "happy" note, K informed me that the swelling in her knee had gone down significantly overnight and she had a greater range of motion in her limb and could even put weight on it without pain. This change gave her hope and let her think that it may be possible to walk on her own steam on graduation night and to walk in the prom's Grand March even if she could not dance.

So today, we have a brand new girl (or should I say woman?). As for me, I am still wondering if I made the right decisions last night. I wished you were there to help. Oh well, it's done now. Maybe you were there all along.