Best Friends

We are sunken. F. shuffles through the house in grief, his spirit leaden. I follow on his heels, grieving for him. S. was dear to both of us; but he was F’s closest friend. I am sad that he is gone. I am sad for his wife, my good friend, and their children. My heart breaks for my husband.

They were as intimate as two straight men can be. For the last two years they met weekly for long talks over beers. They sat close, forehead to forehead, their arms wrapped around each other’s shoulders, sharing their stories.

It was a ritual: F. would hurry through dinner, getting up occasionally to check his cell phone, just to make sure that S. had not called to cancel. When S. became too ill to meet him at their favorite café, F. would go to his house, where they would sit in the living room and talk for hours. In time, the beer gave way to tea. Then water. Then nothing. Just S. in a hospital bed, and F. at his side.

Not so long ago, losing our friends was unthinkable. We were too young. Indeed, S. hadn't even it 50. But now, the people who are getting sick and dying are our peers. They are in their 50s, they have nearly-grown children. They have plans and dreams for the next stage of life. They could be us.

F’s nights are much quieter now. He finishes dinner and retreats to his study. He tries to work, but most of the time he picks up his guitar. From the kitchen I hear him practicing tunes he had learned to play for S., tunes he now plays for himself.

Loss

At first she will count the hours, then the days. Even when the single days turn into double-digits, she will count the weeks, just as she did—as we all did—when newly pregnant; when every few days marked a milestone. Now the fetus is the size of a peanut, a hand. Now the fetus has 10 toes. Now it is sucking its thumb.

It didn’t matter that the weeks became months. We counted them as weeks, digestible strips of time, rows of days that we crossed off the calendar, steps in our metamorphosis.

Pregnancy redefined us, as will widowhood.

But pregnancy is finite. Grief has no endpoint. It does not progress in a straight line. It creeps, it zigzags, it stalls. For every inch forward, there are several more, back.

Now it has been just two days without him. One week ago he was here. Two weeks ago we were singing Beatles’ songs. Four weeks ago we were laughing. 

She will fall into fitful sleep and awaken with temporary amnesia, momentarily light, until reality crashes down.

We held them close, together, and we hold her close, now. And we shudder, knowing that we could be next. Her grief breaks our hearts. And it humbles us.

Getting Steady

Sitting still is the hardest. When I’m anxious or sad, staying in one place is torturous. I need to move. To change positions and scenery. If I change my stance or the way I’m sitting, if I change where I am, then maybe I can shift the feelings that are haunting me.

Vacation—despite the ever-present oppression of family—was, nevertheless, soothing; a much-needed distraction from day-to-day difficulties to which we have returned.

Years ago, I numbed myself to psychic pain. I ate. I drank. I watched a lot of television. Gradually, I woke up and saw that I was actually creating more pain for myself. I started swimming. Then running. That was 30 years ago. The growth wasn’t all linear. It came in fits and starts.

Marrying F. steadied me. Being loved well eliminated extraneous hunger and angst. Since then, I have learned healthier ways of channeling frustration and pain. I’ve come to see them as inevitabilities of living, not as indictments of who I am.

It takes a long time to get steady one’s self. And it’s not fool-proof. Anger and fear and grief still have the power to knock me over. But at least now, I have a better idea of how to get back on my feet.

Faux Pas

His apology caught me by surprise.

“I’m so sorry,” the lifeguard said, as if he’d mortally wounded me. “I’m so, so, sorry.” I stared at him, perplexed. What insult had he thrown at me that I'd missed?

“I’m so sorry, but may I ask your age?”

Was that all? Clearly, he was going to express his shock when I revealed my age. He was going to say that to watch me swim, he could have sworn I was half my age. That not even the teenagers he coaches on the community swim team swim as smoothly, as fast. Clearly he was going to say that to look at my trim body and muscular arms, he would have guessed me to be at least 20 years younger.

“Oh,” he said with a hint of shame, when I said, “I’m 55.”

“Oh,” he repeated, shifting in his chair. “I was going to mention that in the mornings, we have a swim session for seniors. It’s less crowded then.”

The frame froze then. My mouth dropped and hung open for a few seconds. My eyes lost focus, probably because tears were filling them. I swallowed. I reminded myself to breathe.

He’s a kid, I told myself. He doesn’t know. What does he know? To his young eyes, 40 looks like 50 looks like 60. Shake it off.

“Not yet,” I heard myself say, forcing a chuckle. “I’m not there yet.”

Our smiles were awkward. There wasn’t anything more to say. I turned and walked into the locker room, then into the first shower stall, and closed the curtain tight.

Family Vacation: an Oxymoron

We have returned from our yearly summer vacation: one week to reunite with family (F’s), and one week to recover.

Two decades ago, when F. and I were first together, summer vacation was an eagerly-awaited tradition: convening in a cottage on Cape Cod; cooking big, lavish meals, enjoying great wine and staying up late playing games and talking. As the family mushroomed, vacations brought complications—different bedtimes, eating and sleeping habits; a lot of negotiating for a dozen-and-a-half people under one roof.

In 20 years, the ritual has lost its luster. 

Although I enjoy the closeness of family, I am weary of the complications: 18 people are a lot for one house and one dinner table. Meals are raucous (one family has three new little ones, whose whining and crying make pre-dinner cocktails medicinal.) We squeeze together, elbows in each other’s sides. I try to eat as peacefully as is possible with toddlers asking for bites of my salad. It is difficult to savor food among teenagers who eat like lab rats, grabbing seconds and thirds before anyone has finished their first small serving, filling their bellies until they are comatose.

No sooner do the teenagers scarf their dinner, than they vanish to check e-mails and post Instagrams; the adults then have the unenviable task of corralling them to do dishes, which they do feebly, leaving the kitchen a mess. The table is covered with half-filled glasses, strewn with food remnants and half-eaten bananas that draw a cavalry of fruit flies. Stray utensils, cookies and candy wrappers are underfoot.

Meanwhile, the adult children try to reconnect, constantly navigating emotional triggers, buried like landmines in innocent conversation.

I come to the shore seeking peace and restoration. But the older I get, the less tolerant I am of chaos. Perhaps I’m getting cranky in my older age. Or, perhaps I’m beginning to know myself. 

Heartburn

As if deciding which school to commit to (a solid, small liberal arts college) wasn’t enough for one day, E., at the end of the party that I let him throw at the last minute to celebrate—and which got a little out of hand—informed me that he has a girlfriend.

“I’m not a little kid anymore, Mom. I’m a grown—“

He stopped short of saying man.

It's all wonderful news.

It's just a lot to digest in so little time.

Preparing

 “What will you do without me?”

E. is needling me. I have been complaining about his mess or his insolence or his not helping around the house. I pretend to laugh. I roll my eyes, smirk. He smirks back.

.

We have been looking at colleges, meeting with coaches, weighing options. He has another full year of high school, but coaches and players lock up commitments a year in advance. He’s a high school senior, but it feels like he’s leaving tomorrow. The last of the nest.

I’m not ready.

Most of the time, when he’s home, I’m gnashing my teeth at the heaps of mess he leaves in his wake: the dishes, the dirty socks, the wet towels, the gum wrappers, the bowls with dried ice cream, the lacrosse balls and sticks and cleats and netting.

Go, go, go, I think, as I slog through his piles.

Then, after returning from our most recent college visit, the unexpected: I am nervous, edgy. While scrounging for stamps in a drawer, I find a stack of photos. E. is a tow-headed toddler. Beaming. Kissing my face.

He is so young. I was so much younger.

I burst into tears.