I saw the lady walking off the playground as I walked through the gate, beginning to scan the area for Jacob’s bright blue parka with the neon green stripes. She immediately started trying to make eye contact with me. I took in the frizzy hair and slightly confused gaze before quickly returning my eyes to the ground. Please do not speak to me.
But of course, she did. “Hi there, hon.” She smiled, her voice full of the type of goodwill and holiday cheer I will never know again. “Hi.” I answered quietly, no hint of a smile or encouragement to continue this interaction. Jake ran up just then, and I hugged him automatically to my chest. Something in my mannerism must have smacked of motherhood to her. “Is he your son?” she asked, fuzzy eyebrows up and a look of utter surprise on her weathered face.
“Yes.” I said, thinking to myself, no, I just like to hang out in random school playgrounds for no reason.
“Oh, so you still have one baby alive, then…well, then, that’s okay.” She responded, her words indicating I should be grateful, and thrilled with this arrangement.
I stood, speechless.
Is it? Is it, okay, lady? Would it be okay if one of your children were taken viciously and unexpectedly from your world? She’s not a damn cupcake. It’s not like you just move on to the next and think nothing of the one that fell on the floor and is now covered in cat hair, inedible.
I bowed my head before she read my eyes that were full of everything I was feeling- shock, disbelief, disgust, and a deep harrowing pain that I truly hope she never knows. I shepherded Jake quickly to the car before she could say something even more inappropriate, but thought if I were ever crazy enough to sit down for a cup of coffee with this chick…how would I go about trying to explain to her the vastness of her ignorance and the sting of the salt she just massaged into my gaping wound?
I think I would start by telling her that having your son standing beside you while you regard your daughter’s final resting place, at age 19- a mound of dirt, that becomes covered with new grass struggling to take hold, then a confident blanket of green grass looking true and right in its place, then a scattering of dry and crackling fall leaves, then frost-doesn’t take any of the pain away. If anything his presence reminds you that you are vulnerable to this loss again. And if you go whole hog with him, like you did with her, you could feel this exact same way again someday.
I would tell her that it’s hard to even go to the cemetery after you stop going for awhile. That in the beginning, going every day may even desensitize you to the horror of what has happened. You are, after all, resting wholly in your shock. You expect every time you turn the car into the narrow lane that everything in her spot will look exactly the same. If anything has changed, it is traumatic. Most people would think bare dirt would be hard to bear, that a mother would feel better seeing the grass grow over her space, green and full of life. Nope. If anything, that grass made me want to rip my clothes and pull out my hair like they did in times past. That grass said time was passing and she wasn’t ever coming back. It said she belonged to the earth now, and not to me. For the first time ever, since I was a teenager myself, not to me.
As the seasons change, and her spot changes subtly with them, the fact that my time with her is over is trumpeted throughout the hilly countryside cemetery. Anything not done is done. Anything I forgot to tell her, or wish I would have told her more… any plans we put off till we had more money or more time… gone. I will never hold her little hand again. Or hug her. Or hold her on my lap, all 110 pounds of her, to comfort her when she is frightened. I will never hear her call for me or scream for me in the middle of the night.
For this lady to think that Jake’s presence can combat those type of feelings, that type of loss…she is sorely mistaken. Sure, we will comfort each other as best we can. I will love him and he will love me. But he can no more be my daughter than I can be his sister.
In this imaginary coffee date, I would drain my cup, and rise from the table. I would look down at the frizzy top of her head, and say, “So no, it’s actually not okay. And if we see each other again at the school, a simple nod will do.”
I would pay the bill, and sweep out, carrying my images of Cory, my firstborn laid out on the road, the confusion of the responders on the scene, the words of the man who told me she was gone. I would carry the sound of her voice, the way she said my name, her laugh. I would carry the sounds of the songs that played at her service. I would carry the good and the bad, every day, for the rest of my life, whether Jake was beside me or not. Because that’s the way it goes. Each person, truly, is alone in their grief. There may be moments of understanding or comfort, but they quickly fade, and you find yourself sitting alone, starting into space …as Whitesnake so eloquently put it...here I go, again, on my own.
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