a work in progress…rough…but getting there….

A Visit From Mars

Deirdre was agitated. For five solid minutes a car had been driving back and forth past her house, from the corner 5 houses to her left then turning back till it reached the corner 7 houses to her right. Seven times? More? She knew it was one car, the same car.  That pounding bass beat of an impossible to name song nearly eclipsed by the equally loud dual-exhaust muffler, left no doubt that it was the same maddening vehicle.  Here it comes again, she realized. She went to the front door and stood on tip-toes trying to peer through the half-moon window, but just as her eyes adjusted to the glare of the late afternoon sun, the engine cut off. Silence. Squinting, Deirdre found herself remembering that it hadn’t been all that long ago, just over four years, since the sound of a souped up car pulling into the driveway had been as normal as hearing her teenage son Max bound down the stairs just in time for breakfast. All the cars sounded like that back then, all the cars his friends had driven before they grew up and moved away.  Deirdre turned and was halfway down the hall to the kitchen when the doorbell rang. With a sigh, she turned back. Tucking her hair back behind her ears, she glanced at the reflection in the vestibule mirror and flung open the door to her front porch.  That’s when she saw him. The young man who had probably killed her son.

“Hi, Ma. Surprised?”

“Kai. Of course, I’m surprised”, she said with as much composure as her shock at seeing him on the other side of her screen door would allow.  “I thought you were in Hawaii.”  Kai, it seemed to her, hadn’t changed much in four years.  He still had the same lanky build of a high school senior, the same almost too skinny build that he’d shared with his best friend, her son.

“I missed Connecticut, I guess. And I wanted little Marshall, over there, to see where his Dad grew up. You know…the park, the school, Primo Pizza.”

Deirdre followed Kai’s gaze and saw a little boy kicking his spindly legs, struggling mightily to make the porch swing move. Dressed in nearly identical board shorts as her son’s best friend, the child also shared Kai’s deeply bronzed skin and some of the same Hawaiian features—glossy dark hair and almond shaped eyes.

Feeling suddenly guilty, Deirdre said, “I heard about your mom and sister. I’m so sorry”.  Two months earlier the Gazette had carried an article with details of a small sightseeing plane accident in Oahu:  a story about the local girl who’d been a cheerleader at the same school where her mother’d taught math before they’d moved back to Hawaii—only to perish three years later in the crash. She’d sent a card and pink tulips—Malia’s favorite—but later when she’d tried crying in her husband’s arms he’d simply said that it was karma and maybe now Kai would understand what it meant to lose someone he loved.  “That’s about the meanest thing I’ve ever heard you say”, she’d whispered, drawing away in shame and shock. “Kai loved Max, you know that.” Jack, she remembered, had walked away, “No Deir, Kai killed Max.”

Deirdre waited, not knowing what to do until Marshall climbed down from the swing, announcing, “Kai, I’m thirsty.”

“Kai? He calls you Kai?”

“Yeah. It’s cool.  He’s 3½, going on twenty.  I call him Mars.”

“Mars? Oh,” she laughed, understanding quickly, “short for Marshall.  Hey, little guy, want to come inside for a drink?”

“Thanks Ma,” Kai answered for him.  “Do you have Pepsi? Mars has been asking for about an hour.  I was kinda nervous, so we’ve been driving a while.”

“Soda?  Are you sure? Maybe juice or water?  He’s just a little boy.”

Kai was embarrassed.  These were the things he didn’t think of until someone pointed them out.  “Yeah, that’s a better idea.”  Then, wanting to show Deirdre that he wasn’t a total screw-up, he added, “In a plastic cup, if you have one.  He’s not great with glass objects, if you know what I mean.  Also, he’s kind of hungry. Sorry.”

“Of course”, Deirdre replied, feeling a little sorry for Marshall, “I’ll make some fake grilled cheese, the kind I used to make for you boys after school.”

Even knowing that Jack would be angry, she was a little relieved to have the boys, young and old, now seated at the kitchen table.  Deir turned her back on Kai, and busied herself pulling margarine and cheese from the refrigerator.  Maybe she was putting off the inevitable but she was not ready to talk about Max with Kai.  Not that her son could be easily avoided in this room.  Everywhere one looked, there were photographs of Max and food.  Max eating pizza, carrying a zucchini from the garden, proudly holding up a fish he’d caught, with a bowl of Jell-O.  Twelve in all, a shrine of sorts made up of all she had left, framed memories.

The last time she’d seen Kai was five weeks after the car accident.  For weeks, Kai’d visited every day with his sister, Malia. It had been a shock when they’d announced they were all moving to Hawaii.  Malia had been the one and only love of 18-year-old Max’s life. From the moment Kai had granted his best friend permission to ask out his little sister—and by all accounts the negotiations had been anything but easy—it had been love.  The two (and often three) had been inseparable.  Then, one evening when Max was driving alone after dropping Malia off at home, it happened.  Kai was following Max in his own car as they headed to Primo’s to meet friends for pizza.  They’d promised Deirdre they’d be back early but Max never made it home that night, or ever again.  On a dark street, at the only point it curved dangerously to the right, Max had unexplainably steered his compact car into a pole. The only witness was in the car right behind him—Kai.

Deirdre buttered the two pieces of toasted bread and placed a slice of cheese on each side before putting them back in the toaster-oven to melt.  “Kai”, she said without turning, I’m not sure this is a great idea.  You have to understand that Jack isn’t ready to see you, and he’ll be home soon.”

“I know, but I really need to talk to someone.  To you.  About, well, you know.”

Tears began to well in her eyes.  Kai’d asked years earlier but she’d never been able to talk about that night. As long as the words went unspoken she wouldn’t need to consider forgiving her son’s best friend for the unthinkable.  She could go on believing it was just an accident, no one’s fault, and continue to shut down whenever she got too close to imagining the pole landing on her son, the twisted metal, his pain.  His fear.  As long as it wasn’t discussed, she could attempt to bury the torment of having not been with her only child when he’d needed her most.

“Kai. I really can’t.”  Shaking the thought away, she turned to face the boys with a smile only a mom in distress knows how to fake.  “Marshall, here’s a sandwich and milk.” He sat up on his knees but was obviously struggling to get comfortable. “You know what?  Sometimes, as a special treat, I used to let my little boy eat his lunch in front of the TV.”  Deirdre reached up into the soffit over the pantry and pulled down a plastic breakfast tray adorned with Ghostbusters stickers and magic marker creations drawn ages ago. “C’mon, let’s go find something fun to watch.”

When Deirdre returned to the kitchen, Kai was staring at a picture of Max eating birthday cake. “His fingers were so long, ET fingers we called them.  Malia was there, too”, he pointed, “just behind those balloons, playing with the babies. She always loved kids, always wanted to be a mom.”

“Yes.  I remember telling her that she should wait until she was thirty. Or older”, Deirdre smiled sadly at the memory, knowing Malia’d never have the chance. “Speaking of mothers.  Marshall’s?  Are you married?”

“Me? No way.”

“Kai, that’s a little irresponsible. Are you living together?”

“No, there’s no one. No girlfriend.”

“But you have Marshall! You only get visits? What does his mother want?”

Kai sighed and seemed to be trying to find the right words.  “There’s no mother, just the two of us. In fact, that’s why I broke up with Chloe.  She didn’t want to be his mother.”

Deirdre wanted to read him the riot act but didn’t know where to begin.  Obviously, he wasn’t mature enough to be a father.  But then, if Marshall’s only other choice was someone who couldn’t be a loving mother, maybe the child was better off.  “Kai, if you ever have questions, need advice…”

They both looked up at the sound of a car pulling into the driveway.

Taking a deep breath mixed with some degree of panic she announced, “Kai, that’s my husband.  I don’t know what he’s going to…”

But, before she could formulate a plan, he was in the house.  “Hey Deir, you in the kitchen?”  Jack dropped his briefcase at the front door and walked past Marshall without noticing him or the cartoon on TV.  “I was thinking we should…”  Kai turned in his seat to face Jack, wearing an uncomfortable smile that couldn’t fully mask his sudden uncertainty. 

“What the hell is he doing here?”  Jack threw his keys onto the counter, shaking his head, trying to make sense of this invasion.  “What the hell is he doing in here”, he repeated.

Deirdre was struck silent, filled with fear and guilt. Jack repeated her name—a question, filled with blame.  Almost always, when he said her name she could hear the underlying term of endearment it rhymed with.  But now, when he stared at her, his face turning red, she heard nothing but recrimination.

“Mr. Richter, I’m sorry for just showing up.  I just wanted to talk to you.”

“Well, I don’t want to talk to you.  I want your ass out of my house.”

“Jack, please”, Deirdre finally interjected.  “There’s a munchkin in the box”, she nearly shouted, using the covert phrase they’d come up with when Max had been a toddler.

“Jack spun and saw Marshall, thankfully engrossed and unaware. “Geez, he’s with you?  You’re just one screw up after another.”

Undeterred, Kai began to plead, “Please. I really need to talk to you, both of you.”

Jack didn’t need to look at his wife to make a decision.

     “No, damn it!  Not my wife. The basement. Now.”

Deirdre decided to check on Marshall, an excuse to move away from the basement door.  It had taken her years to fully understand that preventing everyone else’s attempts to divulge the details of that night to her wasn’t just cowardice, it was survival. Kai seemed determined to take away her sanity, to open a chasm into her soul that she didn’t trust herself to be able to close.

And now, she saw, it wasn’t just affecting her.  Marshall’s mood had turned pensive.  Was it the briefly raised voices from the kitchen?  Or, maybe she wondered, was he always this way when Kai left the room?  He’d lost Malia and his grandmother, how could he trust anyone to ever come back?  She watched him for a moment from the arched doorway.  His eyes were downcast.  Deirdre took a deep breath and, once again, found the artificial smile that she hoped would ease the tension.  “Hey, little man, everything ok in here?  Are you still hungry?”

“M”

“What, honey? I didn’t hear you.”

Slow, and with studied determination, he spoke. “M….A….X”

“Oh!” Deirdre smiled for real this time, relieved that he was apparently just concentrating on spelling his name. “That’s right, Marshall. You’re so smart. Do you know the rest of the letters in your name?”

Without looking up, he nodded. “M…A…X”

This time, as he repeated the three letters, she heard what he’d said and was stunned as the sound of a small boy’s voice spelling her son’s name reached her memory and then wrapped around her heart.  Stop, she told herself.  He’s just confused. “Marshall…Mars, right?  That’s just a little bit off.  Your name starts with M,A,R”, she explained, emphasizing the last letter.             

Marshall shook his head, confused. “Look”, he said pointing at the breakfast tray.  And there it was, in blue marker where her son had written his name some eighteen years earlier.

“Oh, sweetie.  That spells Max.  Let me write your name for you.”  Deirdre went to the desk, pulled a piece of paper from the printer and carefully wrote MARSHALL. Then she got a few more blank pages and a pencil for the little boy who still hadn’t budged from his spot on the area rug.

She’d just knelt down next to him when they both heard the muffled sounds of a scuffle followed by a crash coming from the basement.

Marshall let out a quiet gasp as Deirdre went flying back to the kitchen where she tore open the basement door.  She was poised to run down the stairs when Jack shouted, stopping her dead in her tracks.

“DEIRDRE!  NO!  Stay up there.  Just STAY!”

“But, we heard a crash.  What happened?  Are you ok?  Are you both ok?”

“Yes, fine”, he said, sounding more in control.  “It’s fine.”  Deirdre heard sadness in his voice and knew she needed to stop this.  Her husband was trying to protect her, but at what price?  His own heart?

“Jack, Please, stop.  Come back up.  Kai, please.  Let it go.  Marshall’s up here.  This isn’t the time or place.”

“Deir, I’m asking you…telling you.  Close the door.”

She hesitated, listening, one hand still on the doorknob.  No one spoke or seemed to be moving to pick up whatever had fallen.  Deirdre was just about to reluctantly close the door when she heard someone moan and, then, what sounded like someone crying.  She leaned forward slightly, straining to make it out.  Was that Jack or Kai?

Silently and carefully, she crouched in the open doorway.  It seemed like forever but finally she heard the hushed tones of someone speaking.  It was her son’s best friend, not her husband, but she could barely recognize him.  His voice was taut, punctuated by what Deirdre imagined was Kai wiping away tears.  The words came slowly, cautiously, as if he’d rehearsed them for years.

“Mr. Richter, It wasn’t his fault.  I was playing with him.  I was going fast, behind him, and I guess I scared him.  The crash wasn’t his fault.  It was all mine.  It was horrible.  It happened so fast but I remember it like it was slo-motion.

“I went to his car and his eyes were open…he saw me.  He knew I was there. I told him he’d be ok, I did,  and I held him through the window. I held my brother, my friend.  I didn’t let go.  You’ve got to believe me.  I know I screwed up so bad.  I know.  I loved him so much.”

Kai’s voice was cracking and Deirdre, listening 20 feet away, wanted to run but couldn’t.  She didn’t care anymore if Jack heard her—that wasn’t it—but she was frozen, stuck in place as the words that she’d avoided hearing pierced her heart, holding her in place.

“Mr. Richter”, Kai went on, “I really am so sorry.  I have nightmares all the time.  I’d do anything to change it all.  I was holding him and he was trying to talk.”

For the first time since she’d been listening, Jack interrupted. “Talk?”  His voice was filled with resentment but also pain.  “My son was alive?  He spoke?  For God’s sake, you son-of-a -bitch.  He was alive and speaking and no one ever told us? All this time we thought that it was instant, that Max never…that he never felt…”

“I know. I wanted to tell…I wanted to but it was too late. Max knew I was there and he asked me to…”

“What? Dear God, what did he say?”

Kai hesitated, but only for a moment. “He asked me to call his mom.  He just said ‘get my mom, I need my mom’ and then he closed his eyes.  He wasn’t there anymore.  He was gone.  Oh man, I’m so sorry.”

Deirdre felt her world implode; the room began to spin.  She felt herself teetering and knew she was about to topple down the stairs.  Pushing herself flush against the doorjamb, she grasped the edge of the landing. Then she felt it come pouring out of her; a scream—but there was no air in her lungs and the sound came out like the high-pitched wail of a cat in pain. And tears. Not the cascading tears that for months on end after her son’s accident had seemed both inevitable and unstoppable.  These teardrops fell slowly, one at a time, staining both cheeks where they landed. The rushing sound of her worst fears drowned out everything else from the basement and living room.

Deirdre couldn’t quiet the words echoing over and over inside of her. I need my mom… I need my mom… I need my mom.   

Finally, her voice broke free of its stranglehold and she wept softly, “Oh baby. My sweet baby. I wasn’t there.  I wasn’t there for you.  You needed me and you were alone.”

A tiny voice answered, the sweet breath of a child blowing gently on her moist cheek. “Why are you crying?”

Marshall stood at her side, his tiny hand combing through her hair.

Deirdre choked back the cries still caught in her throat and looked away; trying to hide the anguished look that she knew would frighten the small and innocent child at her side.

“It’s ok Marshall.  It’s ok.  Sometimes I get sad.”  Surreptitously, she wiped at the tears.  “But, you know what?  I’m not going to be sad now, because I have such a special visitor.  You.”

Seemingly satisfied with her answer the young boy asked, “Help me write my name? Show me?”

“Sure, sweetness.  Just give me a second to stand up.  You go get the paper and pencil and bring it back here to the kitchen.  We’ll sit at the table together.  OK?”

Marshall went scampering off while Deirdre slowly stood to partially close the door.  As she tried to block herself off from the horror that had been thrown at her from downstairs, she heard Jack’s voice and then Kai’s. Just like when the accident had happened, in the days and weeks that followed, she realized with some incredulity that life was going on.

Heartsick, she went to the table where the child was already attempting to copy the letter M.  “Here”, she said pulling a chair close to his, “let me show you.”   Deirdre wrote the letters to his name, this time larger and slower, allowing Marshall to see all the separate lines that went into making letters like M and A.  As they worked together, she was vaguely aware that her husband was still in the basement and that the two were still speaking.  Afraid that the voices might carry up the stairs and that the things they were talking about might upset Marshall, she suggested he take the paper back to the tray and practice some more by himself.  “I’m big. I can do things by myself”, he said proudly as he gathered the supplies and went back to the living room.

The voices from the basement were a little louder now and from her spot at the table she could make out some of the discussion.  Deirdre could hear Kai talking about Marshall and about his sister, Malia.  There was something about their mother and a promise and then more about Kai bringing Marshall back to Connecticut.  After some minutes, she heard the sounds of chairs being moved back into place and then Jack’s familiar heavy footsteps mingled with the flapping sounds of Kai’s Hawaiian flip-flops as they ascended.

Jack came through the door first and quickly walked past his wife, without a word, straight into the living room.  Before she could question him, or even try to make eye contact, Kai emerged—a fresh bruise beginning to darken the skin below his left eye.

“Good lord, Kai!  What happened?  Did Jack do that?”

Without waiting for an answer, she grabbed a towel, rushed to the freezer and got ice.  “Sit.  Sit.  Hold this on your eye, don’t press”, she instructed as she sat back down across from him.  Kai looked at Deirdre and stretched his right arm across the table to take hold of her hand.  As their hands touched, she pulled back, not ready to accept this boy, especially after what he’d admitted to just a few minutes earlier.  But Kai was insistent and grabbed hold, tightening his grip, silently begging her to forgive him.  She looked down at their hands intertwined; the side of his palm resting on the paper where she’d just been helping Marshall practice his name.   M. A. R. S.  She shook her head and stared at the letters.  Avoiding.  It was then, while she forced herself to look at anything but the person holding tight to her hand, that she became riveted on the letters written beside their hands.  Her own son’s initials.  Max Aaron Richter.  M. A. R.

Kai seemed to read her thoughts and volunteered, “It was Malia’s idea.  To name him after Max.  She wouldn’t even consider anything else.”

“Malia?” she asked, confused.  “You let Malia pick his name?  What about Marshall’s mother?”

Kai was silent, not answering immediately.  He took the ice pack from his eye and gently placed it on the table.  When he looked back up at Deirdre, he was crying.

“Ma, Marshall is Malia’s. Max and Malia…”

As Deirdre tried to focus on what he was saying, she felt the now familiar sense of vertigo begin to envelop her.  She turned her head quickly, trying to find the one thing that could center her, keep her from spinning away.  Her husband.  Her rock.  Jack.  She needed him.  And there he was, in the living room, on the sofa.  Mars sat cradled in Jack’s powerful arms—the little boy clutching the remote control in his long fingers.  His ET fingers.

“Guess what” Jack said, finally looking back at his wife, a sadly contented smile lighting his face, “we’re gonna have to start calling you grandma.”

Ed Lowe graciously printed the letter that I wrote to him in Newsday.  (11/26/03)

The outpouring of beautiful sentiments, support, compassion, empathy, friendship, and love after this appeared in the newspaper—mostly from people I’d never met, and still haven’t— has changed me forever. I am forever in awe of the response. I am forever grateful to Mr. Lowe.

I must be having a bad night … another bad night. Otherwise why would I be telling you this? I tell myself it’s to remind myself of the good in people that somehow outweighs the bad in others.

On July 27th of this year, my life fell apart in a way that no one can possibly understand. Not even those people that think they share this misery. Because, Mr. Lowe, I truly believe that NO ONE can understand this kind of personal loss and no one should ever have to. It’s too awful. It’s too devastating. There are no words.

On July 27th my only child, my wonderful son, my loving sweet and impossibly perfect Seth, died. (See: “Crash Kills Recent Grad / Commack teen’s life was full of friends, sports and plans, July 29.)

“That was the day I died as well. My husband tells me he lost his son and his wife that day. I can’t begin to tell you.

Seth was NEVER late … He always called. If he was going to be late – after 11:30 – he’d tell me. Sometimes to the point of being annoying. He’d call every 10 or 15 minutes with updates.

That night … he’d called earlier and said he was with his girlfriend in Kings Park. At 11:30 he wasn’t home; he hadn’t called, and I was concerned. I never felt anger, just a puzzling sort of concern. I waited. And waited. I called his cell phone. He didn’t answer.
  … I left messages. ‘Seth, I don’t care where you are, just call and tell me.’ ‘Seth, I’m getting nervous, just call!’ ‘Seth PLEASE call me, PLEASE.’

“It was around 2 a.m. I was in the living room sitting in the dark with just the light of a muted TV, grasping the phone, willing it to ring. I saw headlights and saw a car pull in front of the house … Something was wrong. The car wasn’t pulling up enough. Seth always pulled up to the second tree. Then, by the moonlight, I saw two people walking up the driveway. I ran to the door. Two detectives. A man and a woman.

“‘Do you have a son?’ they asked. ‘May we come in?’ ‘Wait … wait … wait … I have to get my husband … wait!’ I felt the terror building inside of me as I screamed for my husband, Seth’s wonderful stepdad, to please come – the police were here.

They told us, and my world imploded. I begged them to leave to stop lying to make it stop, to DO SOMETHING! They were amazing. I don’t know how they do it. They waited till my sister got there. And then when it was obvious that we still needed more, they waited till my brother got there. Then, in the middle of night, Seth’s friends started to arrive.

The next morning … I looked outside. His friends – some 50 of them – were gathering on the front lawn. They asked me to join them, and we sat on the grass as one after another told me of some memory, some story that they shared with Seth. One after another called him their best friend.

A month later, I got a letter from the Social Security Administration … I was claiming Seth had died on the 27th; the death certificate said the 28th! It said 3 a.m. on the 28th. I was thrown back to that horrible night, when all I needed to know was that he hadn’t suffered. That he wasn’t frightened. That I hadn’t let him down by not being there. I’d been told it happened so fast. Nothing I could do. He couldn’t have suffered. Now I’m being told by a piece of paper that he’d been trapped in that car for 4 hours! No one called me; no one came to get me; no one let me hold my baby.

I don’t know what losing your only child is supposed to feel like. I don’t know how to deal with this loss … I don’t know who’s in charge of making this all go away … I didn’t have any idea how to get an answer to my prayer. I prayed and prayed and wept and screamed. I needed to know that Seth wasn’t frightened, that he didn’t suffer. I NEEDED to know.

Mr. Lowe, an angel found her way to me … On October 25th, I got a letter in the mail [from]a complete stranger. Her name is … Callahan, and her address was here in Commack. I opened it, truly expecting it to be a personalized, ‘Vote For Me’ letter. Let me quote some of what she wrote:

“I live [in] the second house on the left from Kings Park Road. I heard the accident at 11:05 p.m. … I dialed 911 at 11:06 p.m., as I ran out the door, around the corner, and down the block, barefoot. When I arrived, I asked your son if he could hear me, and he responded by nodding his head. I said to him, ‘Help is on the way. You’re going to be ok.’ He was calm and quiet. Then his body completely relaxed. I truly believe he felt no pain and died peacefully. I yelled at him, ‘Honey please hang on!’ Yet, in my heart I knew he was gone. I walked home and prayed for you, his dad, and his family. My heart has never felt so sad. Your son touched my heart in some unknown way … I attended his funeral, where I learned so many wonderful things about your son. As a mom, I think I would want to know that my child died in peace, not pain, and that there was another Mom with him …”

Because of Mrs. Callahan’s letter, I have found some peace. No angel can take away the pain, can fill the hole in my heart … But she helped – she answered my prayers for answers.

Thanks for listening … Please take a minute to visit http://www.sethbaumgartner.com

Roberta Teer

Commack, NY

For just about everyone the task of writing a will is laden with the frightening realization of inevitable death. One’s own mortality. The end is potentially near. Not comforting thoughts.  Definitely not comfortable thoughts. A crappy way to spend a day already filled with dark threatening storm clouds and a cold sustained wind pointing icy accusatory fingers at every breach in the doors and windows of the place I live.

As I looked around my truly humble ranch style house I saw clearly that the items I’ve filled it with, the things that I’ve placed carefully and lovingly on shelves, in book cases, hung on walls…they are quite probably of no monetary value at all. Certainly not at any great estate auction. Probably, not even at a yard sale. They are mine, and without them, I’d lose all sense of calm and home. However, to anyone else they are knick-knacks, tchatzkahs, old dusty books, art of questionable aesthetic significance. If one were to, upon my demise, attempt to asses the value of the contents they’d quickly find that the beautiful lamps are fake tiffany, the old distinguished looking books are third edition at best.  Then there are the framed photos — on every flat horizontal surface, in every one of my seven rooms. The personal memories caught on film that fill my space with a light much brighter than the southern exposure windows my husband so dearly desired. 

If there was a flood, a fire, a need to suddenly flee my home, it is these pictures I’d spend those last frantic moments gathering. The framed ones, the carefully arranged albums, and the cartons of not quite ready to be displayed snapshots filled with open mouths, squinty eyes, and heads inadvertently cut off.   I’d start again with a new wardrobe, a new television, new computer, jewelry…but the photos are the only valuables that simply can’t be replaced.  And those I’ll have with me till the day I die. Which brings me back to today. The will.

My son is gone, far too soon, and without any sense of fairness. He’s gone. It is my son, and only my son, that would have known the importance of  the stained glass butterfly, the 1890 third edition copy of Little Women, the replica Biloxi Lighthouse, the piece of driftwood collected after Hurricane Gloria kept us locked in our Virginia Beach bedroom closet, the heart shaped stone found on a stretch of deserted Montauk sand. And the photos. Only a child wants to someday inherit the photos of a family that has lost one other. Only a child who expects to someday show his own children and grandchildren the photos of his mother and her family would see a value in those smiling faces preserved in frames of different shapes and sizes.

I have no child and I have no reason to believe that the precious-to-me contents of my home or the memories caught on film will survive my death. 

Even when Seth was alive, it was never the promise of great wealth that I hoped to pass on to him. It was a wealth of memories that I’d planned to share with him as he got older. His mom led a quirky life, filled with odd run-ins with a short list of once notables. Lunch with the Grateful Dead’s Bob Weir, eating frozen grapes with John McEnroe in front of his home, a birthday kiss from a bonafide Billboard top 40 pop star accompanied by a sweeping dip that left me breathless, doing crossword puzzles nightly with Ivan Lendl before he called his daughters to wish them a good night, discussing soap operas at a Manhattan eatery with Wayne Gretzky….hundreds of odd and interesting moments. Moments that I’d planned to regale my son with to ward off any notion that his suburban mom had always been boring. Moments that, with my son’s artful and loving retelling, would somehow have kept me with him and alive. 

But, today as I wrote my last and will and testament, I began to wonder if without that someone to pass the moments and treasures of my life on to…am I really even alive. We all struggle with purpose. Today I struggle with meaning. And reality. 

When I die, the written words of my last wishes will assure only that the real estate in which I house the material contents of my modest life will be sold and divided amongst those that outlive me. But the only real parts of my life worth anything, the photographic proof of happy and meaningful times and the memories that I’m hoping I’m lucky enough to hold onto into what I optimistically expect will be an old age…those will be forgotten with my last breath. 

What a depressing way to spend a day.

What brought this on? I’m not proud. It was my husband. I went to work just before seven in the morning, as I always do, about an hour before him, before he even got up from bed. Most days we talk when we are both in our offices sometime during the morning hours. He’ll call me just to say hi, I’ll call him just to touch base. Sometimes we laugh, sometimes we complain, sometimes it turns into a long leisurely conversation, sometimes it’s rushed. This happens every day, even after more than a dozen years married. Maybe it’s habit, maybe it’s routine, maybe we really do want to speak to each other. Whatever, it works for us.
Friday started out like any other. I was very busy at work and, so, it was almost eleven o’clock before I realized he hadn’t called. I checked the voicemail on both office lines, but there was nothing. I retrieved my cell phone from my pocketbook and checked for missed calls. Nothing. So, I dialed my husband’s office and after 5 rings I was connected with voicemail. I hung up and dialed his cell phone. After 6 rings it went to voicemail. I redialed his office and left a message. “Hey, hon, it’s a little after eleven. Call me.”

Then, I got to wondering.

I hadn’t actually spoken to him this morning before I left. Sure, I’d tapped on the open bedroom door and announced I was leaving – his signal to rise and shine – and he’d grunted a pseudo goodbye, ok, I don’t want to get up sorta thing …but maybe he’d been feeling sick and decided to play hookey. Yes…hookey. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I became. It was sunny, maybe he was just a teeny bit under the weather and wanted one last swim in the pool before we closed it up till next spring. Well, that would be best case scenario. Maybe he was really sick and lying in bed. Maybe he had an infection, the kind that didn’t go away-the kind that had alerted us 6 years ago to what would eventually be a scare with cancer. Maybe he’d slipped in the shower and had hit his head, or fallen down the basement stairs, or…. I reached for the phone and dialed home.

No answer.

I tried again…maybe he was asleep and didn’t get to the phone in time. No answer. Two more times I dialed the office and two more times the cell. Now I was getting myself worked up.

I forced myself to work another 1/2 hour and then I packed up for the ten minute ride home for lunch. Now… more about our daily routine. Not only do we speak daily to each other during the morning work hours, but…we see each other nearly every day at lunch. We each, long ago, decided that a break from the office was crucial to our sanity and each of us lucky enough to be working less than 5 miles from home, we began meeting there for lunch. Not every day-we miss about once a month due to horrific driving weather, meetings that run over, deadlines that need seeing to – but nearly daily. And, this is crucial, if we are NOT coming home we ALWAYS alert each other.

I drove home on Friday with one hand on the steering wheel and the other, risking arrest for not using a no-hands device, dialing his office, cell, and our home. Over and over, a loop of insane speed dialing. 7 minutes after I’d left work (I made every light and drove a wee bit too fast) I made the turn onto my street and saw immediately that Jim’s truck was not there.

Ok, I thought, at least he’s not sick, or bleeding in the tub, or dead from carbon monoxide poisoning. He’d obviously gotten up and gone to work. But…I suddenly worried…but, what if he never made it to work. What if there’d been an accident and he didn’t have his cell phone with him and he…or wait, what if there’d been an accident and he was taken to the hospital, waiting to be examined all this time and no one bothered to call me…or… Oh my God, what if there’d been an accident and he was dead.
There it was. The real reason for the anxious moments of the last hour. What if there was an accident and what if he was dead.

I can tell you that as recently as 7 years ago, I wouldn’t have “gone there”. In fact, I might have gone straight to ticked off or, on a good and rational day, I might have just assumed he’d gotten distracted by something at work. But that was then. That was a different time and different me. I’ve lived the worst possible scenario and, guess what…in my mind it doesn’t make it less likely to reoccur in my lifetime. It makes jumping to that conclusion– something that would be hysterics to anyone else–a very real possibility to me.

I see that look in people’s eyes when I go into panic mode and I don’t care. They don’t understand. 6 years ago I sat in my living room waiting for my son to come home. He was late. He was very late. I never once that night jumped to the conclusion that would ultimately turn my life into an empty shell that would need to be completely refilled again with a whole new me. I never jumped to believing that he’d died and would never come home.

That was the last time I would ever permit myself that kind of naive peace of mind.

Friday I got out my car and went into the house, hoping for one last logical reason that would extinguish the flames of fear now taking over my mind and shaking hands. A note on the kitchen table? A message on my home phone? There wasn’t anything. So I sat at the table and didn’t make his lunch as I always did. I didn’t turn on the noon time news for him. I didn’t fill a glass with ice for his cold drink. I just sat in dread of that knock on the door. A notification. A loss too devestating to survive.

At 12:20, the exact time Jim comes open every day of the workweek, the doorknob turned and sunlight filled the kitchen as my husband walked through the door.

“Hi hon”, he said, smiling as if he hadn’t just brought me back from a place too dark to admit to. “I just got out of the dumbest meeting. Three hours. I tried calling your desk, but I guess I missed you. Guess you must have just left”, he added breezily.

“What’s for lunch?”

Like so much of today’s social media, anyone can write anything. Without regard for who’s reading it, without regard for good taste, without regard for anything at all but a desire to spew one’s otherwise private thoughts onto their own Facebook wall. In fact it doesn’t end there. Facebook users can also write on friends walls. Again, anything they choose to say. And it is not at all a private conversation, but is instead a very public forum. Some times that writing on walls  can be the very real equivalent of graffiti. Unwanted, unfathomable, and frequently immature. Sometimes, it turns out, Facebook friends are just plain thoughtless.

 Today is September 11th. My Facebook friends were, by and large–like most Americans–considerate, contemplative, empathetic.  Not everyone felt the need to address the 8th anniversary of the attacks  on New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania.  As odd as I find that,  because what could be more present on one’s mind today,  it is after all an individual choice. However, one posting has stuck with me all day and not in a good way.  When I woke up this morning, already dreading the rush of memories I was sure I’d face throughout the day, I checked the computer and this is what I saw :

“My condolences to those who lost friends and family that day, but I don’t believe refusing to wallow and obsess over 9/11 is the same as forgetting it. And, let’s face it, the more we fuss about it, the more of a success it was for the terrorists.”

Wallow. Fuss about it.

I started today sick to my stomach.

If we remember, if we mourn, if we honor all those that were affected that horrible day, we are somehow helping the terrorists?

First of all, in the spirit of losing the battle but winning the war, let’s be honest. On that day, as unsuspecting and innocent Americans were frightened and injured and killed, the terrorists did win.  There’s no way around that. From the moment the first plane hit the North Tower until the heroic passengers on Flight 93 brought their plane down in a field in Pennsylvania, the terorists were winning. In the hours that followed, the days, weeks and months…they won. They won when we all watched the skies in fear of probably–but maybe not–innocuos airplanes, when we closed our windows to keep out whatever toxic dust was in the air, when we went searching hospitals and internet sites for missing loved ones, when we attended funerals for the dead.  The terrorists won when we were forced to go to war and lost our sons and daughters. Yes, it’s true, the terrorists had won. They won by stealing our innocence, our friends and family, our city. But, later – today, there is reason to believe that they are no longer winning. We are more cautious, but that’s a good thing.  We are safer and thats a good thing.

 The more we fuss about it…I ask you this, if your loved one is killed during a bank robbery or killed by a drunk driver, does anyone say that mourning their loss is allowing the bad guys to win? Does anyone feel that grieving, mourning, remembering and honoring is allowing the criminals in society to win? I don’t believe that.  And I don’t believe that giving 9/11 its due is helping terrorism . If anything, it makes us, as a country, more resolved than ever to never ever let this happen again.

What I Wrote on Facebook Today:

Anyone who has EVER lost a loved one can understand the impact an anniversary such as 9/11 will have on everyone who lost someone that day. AND everyone who knew someone injured, or trapped, or who escaped with their lives but not before being forever scarred emotionally. AND everyone who stood and watched the Towers fall, or felt the terror that gripped NYC, or watched it unfold on tv. Today can’t be ignored.

Not fancy…but from the heart…

About This Anniversary:

The hard part about anniversaries – and trying to not let them get to the core of you – is that they have this nasty reality of being the same time of year…every year. So you wake up and the sky’s the same color as THAT DAY, or the temperature, or the kids are out playing because it’s summer, or it’s just past the  4th of July…whatever. Think 9/11 – who doesn’t remember the temperature, the clear sky, the lack of humidity…and who doesn’t pray for something different every year just to make the anniversary less painful.

It rained today. Turns out it didn’t matter. It’s still painful.