Friday, July 2, 2010

Nine Months

Tomorrow is nine months you are dead. Nine long, dreary, tear-filled and overwhelming months. The only thoughts that linger in my mind these days are – I wish you were here.

My children and I are stuck at the moment. We are in between their school days ending and their camp time beginning. This has been the longest school year ever. I feel like my children should have graduated high school by now – not just pre-k and first grade. I have never been so happy to say goodbye to school – it has just really been a long hard school year.

But now summer is officially here and we are stuck. We wake up each day with no place we have to be. I am working from home while we are in limbo – and though this is convenient for a single mom, it is quite impossible too. I put them into bed each night and then get to work – spending hours upon hours working while they sleep. I have been up till 2 am almost every night. Then I wake with them each morning trying to keep my crankiness at bay while trying to find fun ways to entertain them.

Today was no exception. We woke up and though it was beautiful out, we went to the movies. Just for something to do. Then I took them swimming all afternoon and then after sheer exhaustion, took them out to the local diner for dinner. Somehow it doesn’t seem to matter how little or how much we do. The end of each day is always the same. We return to an empty home where I get them into bed, we pray to daddy in heaven and then it is just me all alone again – just me.

I am probably a little more melancholy this holiday weekend than most. Last year was a really great July 4th for all of us. We got a police escort (thanks to a friend) straight to the closest spot one can get to the NYC fireworks. It was a magical night for my husband and our children. We aren’t doing that this year and we really aren’t doing much of anything. My neighborhood is deserted with most people away or spending time with their family, because that is what people do. What we would be doing if you weren’t dead.

I sat in the diner tonight facing the window. I watched the couples walk by with their children. I knew all of them by name or face – it is the kind of hood I live in. I would have done anything to be them – just for a moment. To not know my pain and sorrow – to not feel so abandoned and destroyed. If only for a moment, I would have liked to walk in their shoes.

But I walk in mine – and then I looked across the table at my two monsters throwing french fries at each other and fighting over the half inch space on the seat they share – and realized - I wouldn’t trade them in for anything.

On the way home I met a woman who lives three doors down from me. I knew who she was and she knew me, but we have never spoken – not till tonight. She looked at my children and said, if you ever want to knock on my door and talk that would be nice. She is an elderly Jewish woman and looks like Dr. Ruth minus the accent. She said to me, we have something very terrible in common. I said yes, I know. Eleven years ago her husband sent her to the bank to make a deposit. When she came home she found he had shot himself dead.

She was talking about our situations and how terrible they were. I was pleading with her through my eyes to not say anything more specific. I was praying silently for her to not say the word suicide in front of my babies. She thankfully never said the word – but she said a lot more.

After eleven years I am still angry, she said. After eleven years I still think it was a waste and not necessary. He could have talked to me, she said. He didn’t have to do this. But you know this already, she said. She looked at the kids again and said, but you have it much worse than me.

I tried not to cry as I walked away with an extra super fake smile on my face. Honestly, I am just trying to get through tomorrow and then the next day. I can’t imagine anything more now. I would like to think that I could someday come to peace with all that has happened – but maybe I won’t. Maybe I am really asking just way too much.

Of course then at bedtime my six year old cried for you. I just miss daddy he said. Why did he have to die? Then he just cried and cried. He hasn’t cried in a long time. The pain fills up my heart and spills over into everything as I lie with him and feel his tears. This just doesn't get any easier.

So nine months later I still wish you were here. Your children miss you and so do I. I feel at times we have come so very far since the day you died and then I realize – we haven’t even taken a step.

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