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.
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