Choices

Hey there-

I was driving Arthur to his guitar lesson recently.

We got into one of those random conversations that happen in a car with a seven year old. Somehow it came up that I had only wanted to have one child and that after a while his dad and I had changed our minds and how lucky we were to have changed our minds because,"what would we do without you, Arthur?"

"Yea," he said enthusiastically from the backseat, "and I wouldn't have been able to go to San Antonio, or Yellowstone, or New York, or Florida......."

(I found it interesting that the trips we have taken were first on his mind of what he would have missed.)

In my usual fashion of giving too much information I tried explaining my belief that if he had not been born to Bob and I then his spirit would have gone to another family and maybe they would have gone on even better trips.

At this point we had arrived at our destination and were walking across the street towards the guitar shop. He looked up at me wide eyed after I said this and adjusted the guitar on his shoulder.

"Well, I would have had to run away from that family and find YOU mom," he said shaking his head and looking back down at the street.

A few days later I was washing dishes when Arthur started asking me some specifics about the time frame of Bob's death. He wanted to know how old he was when Bob died and the like. I didn't think much about it initially because this is not an unusual line of questioning around our house. But then he surprised me-

"Well, it's a good thing I wasn't born to that other family because you really needed me."

That statement made me pause.

I thought back to being early in my pregnancy with Arthur and the knife in the belly fear I felt when Bob was first diagnosed. I remembered Arthur being a newborn and Bob dying and the hazy exhaustion that consumed me. I remembered the many times I thought that I didn't need Arthur. As a matter of fact, I often thought about how much easier life would be without an infant to care for.

And then I thought about my friend's belief that children choose their parents. And my sister's belief that children come into the world knowing what their parents need from them.

I don't know why Bob and I changed our minds about a second child when we did.

I don't know why Arthur would have chosen to come into the situation he did.

But I'm glad we did and I'm glad he did.

Because one thing I do know is that Arthur was right, I did need him.

Thanks for checking in-

 Irene

Mace Pese

Hey there-

I was seven weeks pregnant with Arthur (now 7) when Bob was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. I was eight months pregnant when we were in Omaha, NE for Bob's stem cell transplant. Arthur was just shy of five months when Bob died.

Needless to say, there were many moments of wondering.

Why am I pregnant right now? Is this really a good idea? Do I really need this right now? How can I handle two kids on my own? Is it OK to have a donut and Dr. Pepper when I am pregnant, because I am really stressed out right now! What were we thinking?!?!?!?!

Arthur came home the other day from school with an art project clutched in his fist. The assignment was to write something they could do.

I will mace
pese to the warld.

Arthur

Translation......I will make peace to the world. (I know, I know, we have some work to do on his spelling)

Well, I guess that answers all my questions, except for that donut and Dr. Pepper one.......

Thanks for checking in-

Irene

Resilience

Hey there-


We got new carpet installed yesterday.

Sunday was spent moving furniture, ripping up carpeting, pulling up staples and painting. The whole project started with a bathroom remodel. You know how these things go, first the bathroom gets fixed up and then before you know it you're ripping up carpeting and taking the pictures off the wall so you can paint the living room.

Arthur (the 7 year old) has been loving all of it. From the demolition of the tile to the hanging of the new toilet paper roll, he's wanted in on all of it. You might think we were the only people ever to remodel a bathroom. Arthur would move his bed in there if he could. And just what was Henry doing while Arthur and I were on our hands and knees yanking out hundreds of staples from the floor? Henry was curled up on the love seat in the sun room amongst all the displaced furniture reading Harry Potter.

They are very different kids.

Later that night Arthur was just out of the shower, his skin all pink and glowing and his hair a big tangle. He sat down on the couch next to Henry and me so I could gently comb out his hair. As I slowly worked out the knots (both boys are growing their hair out for 'crazy hair day') I realized I had never combed Henry's hair like this, Henry has always been too busy taking care of his own personal hygiene to wait around for me.

Then, while getting into his jammies Arthur animatedly told me a story involving some bison (NOT buffalo!). Bison have been his obsession since our trip to Yellowstone last summer. The boy has at least 25 pictures of bison hanging on the walls surrounding his bed, compared to the maps and dry erase board with daily reminders such as "make pancakes in morning" next to Henry's bed.

The point of all this?

The point is that while I watched Arthur strut around the room brushing his hair back from his face with one hand and wildly waving the other around during his very involved bison story I was struck by something, something seemingly obvious, but still a bit shocking to me.

Arthur is becoming his own man.

Somewhere amongst the backdrop of his dad dying and his mom falling apart and his older brother demanding lots of attention and his mom getting married again and older step-siblings coming and going, Arthur is becoming this individual, this person, this man-child with his own voice and opinions and interests.

Despite everything he's growing up, thriving.

"Kids are resilient," a friend told me at Bob's memorial.

Considering there was a time that poor boy practically needed to be bleeding out his eyeballs to get any attention from me, resilience is a good thing.

A quick thesaurus search for the word "resilience" finds these synonyms.....flexibility, pliability, spirit.

That's Arthur.

Thank goodness for resilience.

Thanks for checking in-

Irene

Tiny Spot

Hey there-

On Saturday I was sitting on the floor of the dingy hallway at the high school waiting for my boys to come out of the locker room after their swim lessons. As luck would have it a fellow widow friend was also waiting for her son and we were enjoying ourselves gossiping, eavesdropping on the pom pon girls as they flitted up and down the hallway preparing for their tryouts, and being entertained by her almost four year old.

When my boys emerged into the hallway with their wet heads and red eyes I introduced them to my friend's son, who at this point was lying on his side and spinning in a slow circle on the floor. He stopped spinning, looked at my boys and said;

"My daddy is dead."

I thought this was interesting since he had no reason to connect my boys with their dad being dead like his, and it's not as if his dad just died, it has been a few years. I told him I was sorry and that my boys' father was dead also, then we said our goodbyes and the three of us meandered down the hallway and out to our car, the promised donuts on our minds.

Later that same day, in the middle of a crowded and loud restaurant, Henry brought this interaction up and told me he didn't think "the boy really knew that his dad was dead, as in never coming back."

"Why not?" I asked him.

Henry explained to me that the boy looked about the same age he had been when his dad died and that he hadn't understood what it meant "back then" when Bob died.

"I thought he was coming back," Henry said evenly.

I have to admit this statement surprised me.

I know he was only 3 1/2 at the time but he seemed so on board with everything, as if he really got IT.

"Do you think that now?" I asked him with more than a little trepidation.

"Not really, kind of, like 92% I know that he's not coming back but 8% of me thinks that he's still alive."

Oh dear...................

"It's like when Dad first died there was this tiny spot in me that understood the truth," he says this cupping his hands in a tiny circle near his heart and hunching his shoulders and head forward, "and slowly the spot grew and grew and grew until there was only a tiny spot left that still thinks he's alive somewhere." When he described this last part his voice became quite theatrical and he lifted his head up, brought back his shoulders and threw his arms up in the universal sign for victory.

I was jealous of Henry's description of his tiny spot, which sounded more pleasant than my tiny spot. What I felt was more of an enormous dark stain that covered me in darkness with an occasional tiny spot of light fighting its way through. Then my tiny spot grew and grew too, until eventually I was mostly in the light with only occasional darkness.

What's interesting to me is that in the beginning Henry's tiny spot seemed to be the dark part and my tiny spot was the light part. But Henry's spot did not appear to get darker as it grew, not the way he described it anyway. Both of our tiny spots brought us into the light as they grew, each in our own way.

Henry's little body and emotions could only take on the enormity of what had happened to him in little bits, a tiny spot. I love the image of Henry opening up as his tiny spot of understanding grows, not shutting down with the weight of the truth but being lightened by it.

I also love that he still reserves a tiny spot where Bob still lives within him.

Thanks for checking in-

Irene

Relief?

Hey there-

I have noticed something interesting lately.

I will give you an example.

Yesterday I met a woman. We began talking and the subject of my book came up. Since I am still working on my "elevator speech" I proceeded with my usual babble about being widowed and living beyond grief, yadda, yadda, yadda.....(doesn't that just make one want to run out and buy the book!??!....help!) Anyway, once the word widow came out of my mouth the familiar head tilt happened. You all know the one I'm talking about. The head tilt that comes with the furrowed brow and is usually accompanied by some sort of sympathetic utterance such as "oh my", or "oh dear".

This particular conversation continued and like so many other times before the subject of my second marriage came up. Once the remarriage statement came out of my mouth the head that had remained tilted straightened, the brow relaxed it's concerned wrinkled look, the eyes lit up, the woman smiled, and said with a sigh of relief; "Oh, that's so great. I'm so happy for you."

I am not picking on this particular lady, who was a very nice and grounded person and I would love it if our paths crossed again. I have had countless conversations that have gone this same way, and I find it interesting, the visible signs of relief I witness when the person hears I am married again. As if the two minutes it took to get from the grief of the young widow thing to the joy of the married again thing was almost unbearable for them.

Why are these people so relieved to find I am remarried? It's interesting. Is the relief for me or for themselves? I don't feel much relief being remarried so it must be for themselves. Is it simply easier to talk about marriage than grief with a stranger? Do they assume that because I am married I am happy again,no longer grieving, I am "over it", I have moved on?

Well, I am married again, and I am mostly happy, but I am not done grieving, nor have I moved on. I have moved forward, accepted the hand I was dealt, and tried to play it as best as I can. But at the end of the day, Bob is gone, which I am sad about, and Mike is here, which I am happy about. Not much relief in that, really, but it is interesting.

Thanks for checking in-

Irene

Necklaces

Hey there,

Last night I was trimming Arthur's fingernails before he went to bed. I sat on the toilet with the garbage can between my knees and he stood to the side of me with his little hand outstretched. We were in Mike and my bathroom since we couldn't find a pair of clippers in the kid's bathroom. (shocking, I know)

Next to the toilet, hanging on the wall is some kind of contraption I bought when Bob and I lived in Portland that holds all my jewelry. The earrings nest in individual indentations and the necklaces and bracelets hang from little posts at the bottom. Arthur gazed at the necklaces while I trimmed up his nails and babbled about my memories of my dad (his grandpa) trimming my nails on Saturday nights before church the next morning and how he would sit on the toilet, just like I was right now, with the garbage can between his knees to catch the fallen nails.

Arthur asked if he could wear one of the necklaces and I said "no", explaining the necklace had been my grandmother's and it had been a gift from my grandfather to her and after she died I got it and I wore it at Mike and my wedding. He wanted to know which necklace I wore for "his daddy's wedding" so I carefully removed the fresh water pearl necklace that my dad brought all of us girls home after one of his business trips to Japan so Arthur could look at it. Then Arthur asked me about the necklace I had made from Bob and my wedding rings, so we talked about that for a moment. Then he asked about a locket I have that a friend's mom gave me when I graduated from college.

Arthur began to rank the items in order of importance.

While he did this ranking and confirming with me which ones he could wear and which ones he couldn't he suddenly said; "When I have children they won't ever meet my daddy."

"No, they won't, unfortunately," I agreed.

"So, they won't have a grandpa like I have a grandpa."

"Well, they'll have Mike, and he will be their grandpa," I explained.

"Will I tell them that he's their step-grandpa?" he wondered.

"You can explain whatever you want to them, but this is a long time away, we don't have to figure out what your children will call Mike tonight."

"But my children will call you grandma, like I call my grandma, grandma, right?"

"Right."

"Will my children call my grandpa grandpa when he sees them, just like I do?"

Up to this point I was enjoying the conversation, thinking it was cute and funny and fascinating, but now I began to get a little melancholy. It's doubtful that Arthur's grandpa will ever meet Arthur's children.

Shit, more death to come, more grieving for myself and my children. Man, can't we get a pass on this one? Haven't we dealt with enough already? Can't everyone just live forever?

Well, as "they" say; grief is the price you pay for love. And right now Arthur isn't focused on his losses or his potential grief, he seems to be enjoying all the love he has surrounding him and how he might explain it all to his future children one day.

More power to you Arthur, live in the moment.

Thanks for checking in-

Irene