In the days following Jon’s death before we flew to his
parent’s home to have him buried, my house was full of people wanting, needing
I suspect, to do whatever they could to help me. My mom went through all of the
dirty laundry in my house meticulously removing anything of Jon’s, washing it
and putting it away so that I didn’t have to come home only to weep over Jon’s
dirty underwear.
Up until today, her efforts were a huge success. I’ve since had
to was some of Jon’s clothes, but only because they were t-shirts I had been
sleeping in. That was ok.
But today I was putting a load of laundry in the wash and
found myself getting to the bottom of the basket. At first that felt great. The
bottom of the basket! I haven’t seen that in, well, forever! But then out came
Jon’s swim trunks. And not just any swim trunks, the ones he wore on our
camping trip the weekend he died. They were still covered in sand and stained
with his sweat. At first I just stood there, not sure what to do. Do I wash
them? Do I throw them away before it hits me? They are old and worn out so
throwing them away wouldn’t be a bad idea. Instead, I neatly folded them,
placed them on top of the dryer, tucked my head into my hands, elbows propped
on the stiff fabric and sobbed. Eventually I gathered them in my hands again
and sat down on the floor to cry some more. The area where my tears fell
quickly turned from moist to soaked. I worried my kids would hear me, but
couldn’t stop.
When they finally came into the laundry room looking for me
I was sitting on the floor with a dumbfounded look on my face, tears still
streaming down my face. All three of them came bounding fearlessly and
selflessly to my aid. All the times I have wanted to take pain away from them
and now they are the ones wanting to take my pain away. It broke my heart even
more. How could I let them see me like this when I know they’re hurting too.
They need me to be strong. It shouldn’t be the other way around. But unmoved
they told me to come eat dinner and just like that, my spell was over.
When I came out, my ex-mother in-law had arrived with
Chinese takeout. I can only assume she saw I had been crying. She lost her
husband to an eerily similar situation only one year ago. She told me that
before I got home from work she saw I had gotten a card in the mail. She
remembered all those days of coming home to sympathy cards and said they always
made her sad, so she thought I’d need to not have to worry about dinner. My
heart melted. This woman who not so long ago was just as much a mother to me as
my own who now has no reason to take care of me, was worried because she knows
all too well the pain. I looked at the table set with brightly colored plastic
plates and varied silverware and my kids smiling and laughing as they helped
themselves to lo mein and fried rice and orange chicken.
Lilli asked where the red chicken was. She hadn’t asked for
red chicken (bbq pork, but she’s always called it red chicken and it stuck.) “Where’s
the dumplings,” Zoe continued. She hadn’t asked for dumplings. Chinese takeout
was Jon’s favorite. Anytime I asked him what he wanted for dinner the answer
was always, “Chinese?” I form that in the phrase of a question because that’s
how it always sounded. I like cheap Chinese, but I always frowned on the idea
of drowning my kids in sodium and msg. He answered my question with an
inquisitive suggestion because the answer was almost always no. But when the
answer was yes, he was like a little kid who just got told he could have a
second helping of ice cream. Two things could always be counted on from Jon’s
trips for Chinese takeout: House Special Lo Mein and fried dumplings. There was
no need to ask for them, they appeared, as if by magic, without fail.
My heart broke for the two of them as I realized they now
had to request such obvious components of an impromptu Chinese dinner. But
again, they were unwavered. So I remembered those nights with a smile rather
than the tears I had only moments before shed at the thought of Jon and I’s
final weekend. I remembered opening our fortune cookies and both of us silently
inserting “in bed” after the fortune. We’d laugh and the kids would have no
idea why. We once considered letting Lexi in on the joke, but decided to wait a
year or two for middle school to finish corrupting her before we added to it.
We did everything as a family. Chores were done as a team.
Grocery shopping was a family adventure. Choosing which movie to watch on
Netflix was a democratic process. And Jon was the one who started it all. It’s hard to remember that, while the
scenario has changed and our family has gotten smaller, that’s still there. It
often takes my kids doing what Jon would have done or mentioning his name when
something familiar pops into conversation to remind me that his leaving did not
break us. It just set us back a little. I don’t want what he left to go away. I
want to carry on all of those traditions – the good ones anyway. But I also
feel like I need to find some new ones to sprinkle in with them. Because if I
don’t, there’s this anchor holding me to what was and stopping me from
venturing into what will be. The girls and I can’t live in the past, but moving
into the future still seems so painful. Balancing how to integrate then with now
and still to come is something I’m still learning. But my girls have proven to
be the best teachers.
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