Let's Play Pretend

For as long as I can remember, I've loved to play pretend.  Once I learned how to write, I had the ability to create any reality I wanted.  I remember reading Stephen King's novel, Misery, about the writer held hostage by his greatest fan and wondering for a moment if that was really so terrible.  I mean, you'd get to do what you love, no other responsibilities, writing every day, someone else to cook and clean up after you, you'd have an avid reader who enjoyed your work, someone to proof read...like, what was all the fuss about?  If he hadn't complained so much maybe she wouldn't have chopped his foot off.  I wanna be someone's pet writer.

Over the years, I've used my imagination in some admittedly unhealthy ways.  When Bob and I were young, it was let's pretend if I do everything just right, he won't lose his temper.  Let's pretend he can keep his promise to never do it again.  Let's pretend that was really the last time he will ever push me, choke me, wreck the house, block the exit, smash the phone, etc.  Then when he got down on his knees, his face tear stained, and asked me where my heart was...well, we all know what my answer was, time after time.


Nearly twenty years later, it was let's pretend he can do more than go to church and complete a substance abuse program.  Let's pretend he can hold down a job, regulate his moods, and learn new roles [father, provider, husband].  Let's pretend he's not controlling anymore.  Let's pretend he will stay in treatment.  Let's pretend he can be part of a family...this family.

You see there were moments when it all fit together with no empty spaces, just one piece nestled up snugly against the other so perfect and warm, like the feeling of his hand in mine when we drove along in the car, the way my head fit against his chest...just right...the sight of he and Jake sitting together watching tv, laughing, and sharing a bowl of popcorn...the times Cory joked with him during a meal, looking up to see the two people who had come together to create her, together, loving, silly, and easy.  It was in these moments that I had begun to hope, and my imagination ate that hope up like a starving creature...and once that happened, it was all too easy to propel myself into a future in which Bob worked a regular job, we ate dinner together with the kids every night as a family, and I went to sleep with my head on a pillow next to his head on a pillow, warm and safe, poor but happy.  I'd look down at the diamond on my hand and my heart would nearly burst.  It was going to be okay this time.  It was.

Until it wasn't.  You can't pretend mental illness, addiction, or abuse away.  I'm a slow learner, but I finally got that lesson.

After Cory died, it was let's pretend there is a way out of this pain.  What would it be like to have everything just stop?   What it be like to never again have to open my eyes to that terrible knowledge?  What would it be like to never see those awful pictures in my head again?


But playing pretend isn't always a bad thing.  The morning after Mom's surprise party, my niece, Alisha texted me to tell me Cory had been on her mind.  As she described a twenty five year old Cory, alive, strong, and healthy, with "meaningful and beautiful tattoos, a couple more piercings, and fashionable af, accessorizing the hell out of every outfit", I could see her in my mind's eye.  Do you understand how huge that is?  What a gift that is?  I could see my child.

She went on to describe how Cory would've reacted to being asked to be both her and my nephew's wife's maids of honor:  "asking if we were sure and jumping up and down and screaming".  The tears rolled down my face at this image, this was just so perfectly Cory.  She is still remembered.  She is still loved.  She is known.  Someone other than me is carrying a perfect mental representation of her in their mind.  I don't have to worry that when I'm dead, she will cease to exist- one of my biggest fears.  I'm not carrying her all on my own.

A couple of hours later, it was Cayla calling me as I drove to the coffeeshop to tell me of a dream she'd had of Cory the night before.  She'd had a dream of hanging out at my house, watching something on tv with Cory.  Cory's eyes were bright and her energy high as she popped up off the couch, "Snacks?"

That one image...I've seen it a thousand times.  Cory in pajama bottoms and an Aeropostale shirt, her hair pinned back or pulled into piggy tails, sitting cross legged on the couch, laughing and cracking jokes as we watched a show, popping up on her feet suddenly, as if on a spring, and saying, with one eyebrow slightly raised, "Snacks?"  They padded into the kitchen to rummage through the fridge and freezer, finding only...wait for it...dozens and dozens of homemade doughnuts.  Apparently at some point, I had learned to make doughnuts.

So there she was again.  My child alive and standing in front of me, if only in my mind's eye.

This is the single best gift and the most powerful gesture you can ever give a grieving mother.  For any second that my girl is raised from the dead, whole and in my company, I am made whole and I can fly again, free from the suffocating pain that weighs me down every moment I live in this Cory-less world.  Because most days, I am merely surviving.

Playing pretend doesn't have to be dangerous, sometimes it is what keeps you alive.

Keep Looking Up

My mom's surprise eightieth birthday party?  It started about two weeks ago when I got together with my sister and her family for dinner.  I shared a conversation I'd had with my mother on the phone a couple of mornings prior, "...and then she said, 'I've never had a birthday party-not once in my whole life, not even as a child."

The whole table, minus the baby, hung their heads over their plates in shame.

I continued, "and she paused...and then she added, 'If I never do, I guess it's been an okay life, but I do wonder what it might have been like...'  You guys!  It was the saddest thing I've ever heard in my life!  We should be ashamed of ourselves!  We HAVE to do something!  We are FAILING her!"

Not even twelve hours later, we were group texting with my other two sisters, their kids, and their kids' spouses to nail down a location, make a guest list, decide on food, decorations, and create a secret face book group for invitations.

At times we had as many as three group texts going at a time about gifts and party arrangements.  I lived in constant fear of accidentally responding to Mom or including her in a reply.  I tell my mother everything.  Since Cory's death, she has become my best friend.  I loved her dearly before, of course, and more than ever after, but I think it was sharing that tiny cookie while we waiting for them to get our room ready in Rome that gave our relationship a whole other dimension.  We nearly laughed ourselves off that couch onto the lobby floor and suddenly, we were ...friends.  We became and have remained so close.  I don't want to imagine a day I can't speak to her.   I get halfway into a thought about that, made even more vivid by my longing to hear Cory's voice, and turn my mind violently away.  NO!

Everything came along pretty well, all of us splitting up the work and pooling our resources.  My sister, Kim, snuck into Mom's house ninja-style to retrieve photos of Mom at different ages for the party.  My sister, Tammy, pulled our dad aside at church to let him in on the plan.  I asked him, afterwards, how he managed to keep the secret from She Who Knows All.  He grinned broadly, and pulled me close, "You know how I handled it?  Here's what I did...the only thing I could do given the situation.  I avoided the topic ENTIRELY."

At one point, we needed my uncle's phone number and had to get creative in order to get it.  It would be weird to ask Mom for it out of the blue.  We couldn't ask Dad because he can't hear very well over the phone.  I see my cousin at the local coffee shop nearly every weekend, so I invented a plausible story line about running into her and how she had asked me if I could get his number from Mom to give her.  We soon realized Mom may decide to call the cousin herself instead,so I had to get a hold of her and let her know we'd included her in our ruse.  Worked like a charm.

The nearest disaster was when two of my sisters went shopping for the food items and discovered Mom and Dad were in Meijer's shopping, as well.  There they stood with no less than sixteen bags of shredded cheese in the cart.   "Oh my God!  We've got to get out of here!"  Indeed, they did.  There is simply no explanation for that much cheese.

Kim ditched the cart, actually pretending it did not belong to her as Tammy broke into a near run to grab the Parmesean.  Kim said she nearly bent over laughing when Tammy appeared in her line of vision, holding the Parmesean up like a trophy and giving it a good waggle, her face victorious. This may have been the best part of planning this party for my mother... the way it brought me and my sisters together and the fun we had doing something good for someone else.

My niece, Alisha, had the pictures made.  My nephews' wives put the decorations together.  My sister, Ronda, ordered the cake and picked up flowers for the tables.  I ordered the balloons and picked up a flower arrangement for Mom, which Tim took over the the party early.  My sister, Tammy and her husband made lasagna.  Everyone worked together to decorate and then wait for the big arrival.

Everyone but me.  Jake and I were in charge of bringing Mom and Dad to the party without Mom knowing where she was going or why.  The minute I heard I was to be in charge of this task, I rubbed my hands together in anticipation...time to put my creative writing (making crap up) skills to the test.

So originally, I invited Mom to the movies with Jake and I.  I figured keep it routine; keep suspicions low.  Tim would pick Dad up and take him to the party location with the balloons and flowers.
But then, Mom wanted, naturally, to have dinner with her girls for her birthday.  We were forced to  make up reasons why it would be better to wait until the following weekend, claiming that one of my sisters had to work and my nephews wanted to come but had to work, as well.

She seemed so sad.  At one point she said, "I'll be the big 8-0." sort of despondently.  I kept to the story and said, "Yes, so we want EVERYONE to be there.  Better to wait till next weekend."  Heartless, I am a heartless child. If there is a hell, I will surely burn there.

The day before the party, she announced she wasn't sure if she could make the movie, that she'd been talking to Dad and figured since no one else wanted to go out to eat with her on her birthday, she'd just have him take them both to Finley's.  Well, crap.

I switched gears quickly.  "Oh!  You're going to Finley's?  We want to go!  How about if Jake and I just pick you up and we'll go just the four of us?"  I may have thrown something in about how we loved her best and preferred her all to ourselves anyway.

So now, how to explain when we didn't drive straight to Finley's, but in the opposite direction?  And how to lure her inside the building?  Girl, hold my coffee.

I came up with the idea to tell her my best friend since childhood, Nicole's, parents were having their anniversary party at the party location.  I'd been invited, but hate large social gatherings and so needed to drop off a card and maybe give Nicole a hug as she was setting up and doing the decorations.  Mom could even come in and say hi, if she wanted...Nicole would love to see her.  I'd even worked a prop into the story, writing "Mr. and Mrs. Havens" on the birthday card for my mom and sealing it shut.

Mom texted me a couple of hours before the party saying my sister, Tammy, and her husband, Dave, were planning to join us at Finley's.  Was that okay?  I told her it was, trying to make it real by teasing that Tammy invites herself everywhere, doesn't she?

Jake and I picked my parents up at precisely 3:40.  Twenty minutes and counting...

The minute she got in the car, I said, "Oh, Mom, I'm glad we're early.  I forgot to tell you I just need to make a quick stop on the way to Finley's.  Nicole's parents are having their anniversary party today and they invited me, but you know I don't do big crowds so I just wanted to drop this card off and say hi to Nicole real quick.  I won't stay.  It's not even until 6.  They're setting up the decorations."

She said, "Oh, okay.  But I'd better call Tammy and tell her we'll be a few minutes later than we thought."

I apologized, "I'm sorry.  I hope that's okay.  I just hated to say no.  Nicole's been so supportive to me."

Mom patted me as she settled the card for "Mr. and Mrs. Havens" safely into her lap.  "It should be fine.  It won't take long.  You do have a good excuse not to go, though.  It IS your mother's birthday, after all!  And her 80th!"  she laughed.

I laughed right back, "Right?"

Mom started dialing.  I fell right into my lie, headfirst.  "Hey, Mom, this party is that place where Alisha's bridal shower was, but I didn't go, so I'm not sure I know where it is exactly.  Can you ask Tammy how to get there?"

As we drove along, Tammy gave Mom directions to the building I'd staked out earlier that morning when getting the flowers and balloons.  I knew exactly where I was going but pretended I didn't so Mom would guide me every turn.  I was padding my cover story here and there, asking what she thought about using the same location for Jake's open house in two years.  It was so much fun getting her to believe it, I had to restrain myself from just throwing in random lies unnecessarily.  Like what could I get her to believe?  Had I missed my calling?  Should I have been a spy?  An undercover cop?
A used car salesman?

Once we got to Riverside Drive, I made a big to do about Jake learning to drive but not knowing his way around the city yet (as if I could talk...I've lived here for four decades and could still get lost driving home from the mall).  The mention of "Riverside" was code for Jacob to text Cayla and give the Estimated Time of Arrival, which he did efficiently and discreetly.

Sure enough, as we closed in on the party location, Cayla was on the phone with Mom distracting her by asking what time would be okay to bring Lillie by for a visit with her great grandma.

Mom pointed.  "Here, right here!  That's it.  Just park right there on the grass, we won't be but a minute."
Knowing we would be staying, I ignored her directions and drove a little further down.  "What are you doing?" she protested.  "We're gonna have to walk a long way."

"I don't want them to come out and tell me to move.  I'll just park right here." I said, going against her wishes, which made me way more uncomfortable than the gollywhopper of a lie I'd been telling her for the last twenty minutes or so.

Without another word, I put it in park, casually saying to Dad, "Oh Dad, maybe you should come, too, if Nicole finds out you're in the car and I didn't bring you in to say 'hi', she'll never forgive me."

Jake took this cue perfectly.  "Don't leave me in the car."

I kept her talking the whole way up the walk, Dad and Jake right behind us, certain she would recognize a vehicle and the whole cover story would come tumbling down.  "Do you think I should knock?" I asked her, playing the shy-in-social-situations-Nicole.

"No, you don't need to knock.  Just push it open."  she directed.

I did, with her close at my heels.

"SURPRISE!!!"

The look on her face.  It worked!  It really worked!

The moments that will stand in my memory always:

My Dad turning to me and my sister, Ronda, at one point, looking around the room at all the people and saying, "Do you see all these people?  How they showed up for her?  They love her!  They just love her!"

As the crowd sang "Happy Birthday" to her with the candles lit, my Dad suddenly become so overwhelmed with love for her, that he spontaneously leaned over and kissed her on the cheek, right there in front of everyone.  My dad is the shyest man I've ever met and that includes Jake and Blakie.  So if you didn't tear up for that one or at least feel a tug at your heartstrings, you have no soul, buddy.

Me, calling out to Mom as she opened her presents, "Mom!  I just have to know...is this the best birthday party you've ever had?"

She laughed right back at me, her blue eyes twinkling.  "You know, I think it just might be."

My Dad, smiling and laughing, with his baby brother, he at 83 and his brother at 81.  As his brother got ready to leave, they hugged and jostled, my Dad's face lighting up as they joked about their youth.  He whispered to me ruefully, with a smile, "We were always in trouble."
As Uncle Len got ready to leave, Dad grabbed him. "Take care, Brother!" he said giving him a final arm squeeze.
 Uncle Len answered heartily, "You take care, too, Brother!" smiling from ear to ear. "All right, now!"
My Dad called out to him as he walked away, "Keep looking up!"

This last comment, thrown out in excitement, I pondered later.  What did he mean?  Keep positive?  Keep trying?  Keep looking up, as in towards God?  After all, my Dad never misses an opportunity to share his faith.  He'd ministered to me and my sister, Ronda, not five minutes ago.

The only drawbacks to this wonderful event were that Cory wasn't there and Mom couldn't call her sister, Dorothy, afterwards to tell her all about it.

When she opened the card I'd bought from Jake and Cory (Jake being so insistent that he only sign his name and I sign Cory's so they appeared in different handwriting), I watched the pain wash over her face as she read her name.  My eyes filled with tears to hear her say quietly, "That sweet girl would've loved to be here with us today."    Man, would she ever.  Cory would've loved to get caught up in the covert operations required to pull this shindig off.  Every single moment, she'd have been plotting and helping and offering to do whatever was needed.  Cory loved to make people happy.

 I haven't done any searching behavior in years, like when I used to look for her in the aisles of Barnes and Noble, but there are still moments when my guard is down and I half expect her to just come flouncing out from the bathroom, radiant and alive, talking about getting a second piece of cake or complaining that her shoes are hurting her feet.

 And I'll tell you a secret totally unrelated to my mom's birthday party.  It's taken me a long time to realize that Cory was the "mover" in our family- my family of me, Tim, her, and Jake.  She was the one who urged us to plan outings and family activities.  After she died, we sat around looking at each other, none of us quite sure how to fill her silly, fun loving, spontaneous shoes.  None of us had ever done that role before and we were all too traumatized to even try.  So our family stood still...for years.  Slowly, slowly, we are reorganizing.  It will never be the same, but we are doing our best.

We took a zillion photographs towards the end of the party- Mom with every possible combination of every human being in the room.  Had someone walked in off the street, we'd probably have taken a few of the two of them, as well, just to be safe.  So, of course, Cory's absence was heavy on my mind as I saw her pose with her grandchildren.  Cory had loved Mom so very much.  I sometimes think Cory could never have handled losing Mom.  Maybe that's why she died first.

I didn't want Mom to see me sad on her special day so I did what I do best.  I just turned it up all the way, draping myself across her lap for the sort of silly, impromptu pictures I know will mean the most to me someday.  If there's one thing I've learned in losing Cory is that pictures are incredibly important and the ones that tell the story of your relationship with that person... priceless.

I know at the party, behind the smiles and the banter, Mom was already thinking about how she wanted to tell Aunt Dorothy all about this party...and couldn't.  Sure enough, on the way home, she said just that, her eyes filling with tears and I had to reach across the seat and hold her hand as we drove along.  I get it.  I know how much that hurts.  And I will sit here with you while your heart is breaking as we drive home in the dark.

The next morning, at the coffee shop, I reflected on the party...how happy and joyous Mom had been with her friends and family around her and I realized that we never stop modeling for our children our entire lives.  It doesn't stop when they become our adult children.  They still watch us the entire time.

I've watched Mom struggle with her grief after burying her grandchild and now her dear, sweet sister.  She is the one person, outside of Jake, that I feel really understands what I'm going through.  Yet she shows up to every family gathering, she smiles, she has fun, and she hugs everyone when she leaves. She told me once, "We have to try, honey.  And we have to help each other." She hugs us a little tighter and she tells us she loves us every time we part.  In fact, she usually tells me she loves me multiple times in a row just to be sure I've heard her and perhaps to emphasize the weight and sheer vastness of her affection.  If anything, she loves more fiercely now, more purposefully.  She makes sure every interaction ends with her love voiced as loudly and as plainly as she can muster.

You see some things our parents teach us outright.  Other things we pick up just by watching.

I hope your teachers have been as incredible as mine.

Love with all of your might.  And keep looking up.