Widowish: A Memoir(25)

“Not at all! But if you have this disease, let’s take advantage of the perks. Closer parking, especially living in LA, is a perk!”

Joel didn’t want to give in. Not just to me and the argument that I was making, but to the MS. Early that summer, we had gone to a concert at the Greek Theatre. It’s a beautiful outdoor venue that feels uniquely Los Angeles. It is tucked away in the mountains in an “Old Hollywood” neighborhood. Parking was a pain in the ass because of traffic, plus it was ridiculously expensive. For years we would park about a mile away in the hilly neighborhood that surrounds the Greek and walk up the residential streets to get to the theater and back.

When we were leaving the concert that night, after hours of standing and sitting and moving, the walk back to the car was too much for Joel to manage. What normally took twenty minutes took over an hour. We had to stop frequently so Joel could rest. In what seemed like an everyday occurrence, Joel’s legs becoming more like stilts and nearly impossible to bend made the walk that much more difficult. By the time we were in the thick of the neighborhood, Joel sat on someone’s front lawn, completely spent.

“I hate this,” he said. “I’m sorry.”

I kissed him. “Don’t worry. I need this. I didn’t exercise today!” I said. I then trotted up the street a few more blocks to where our car was parked. I tried to make light of the situation, but I knew it was killing him. Joel felt emasculated.

“What kind of husband am I if I can’t even walk my wife to our car?” he asked, getting into the car.

“The best kind,” I told him. I reached over and squeezed his hand. It offered him no reassurance. He felt completely defeated, but I felt strongly that if we could keep things “normal” and continue to do the things we loved, it might help Joel feel better. Even if it was something as mundane as convenient parking.

It didn’t occur to me as we drove home that night, my mind racing, worrying about my husband and his health, worrying about our life and our future together, that it would be a life without him in it.

“Sissy?”

I opened my eyes and pulled down the covers to find my sister.

“Are you OK?” Holly asked. “Shiva is still going on.”

But I wasn’t ready to talk. I wanted to stay in the cocoon of my bed. It was warm and comfortable. Joel was there with me. I felt him.

“I’m just going to stay here,” I told Holly. “Maybe forever.”

“You can do that,” she said. “But Sophie is looking for you.”

Sophie!

I jumped up just as she appeared in the doorway.

“Mom?” she said.

There was my girl. My beautiful girl with her thick brown hair and her daddy’s green eyes. They were full of tears. I lifted back the covers.

“Come.” Sophie ran into bed and got under the covers with me. Like me, she was fully dressed.

“It smells like Daddy,” she said as she settled in.

I wanted so badly to believe that, but it had been a month since Joel was in our bed.

“It does,” I said, stroking her hair. “Smells just like him.”

My sister left the room, and Sophie and I stayed like that for a long time. I gave her tickles. I stroked her hair. I kissed the top of her head as we both snuggled with Joel’s pillow and cried.

“I miss him,” she said.

“I know you do, sweetness,” I said. “Me, too.”

I could hear people in the house. I tried to imagine what Joel would think of all of this. We were known for throwing great parties. It’s a good one, I told him. You’d be so happy.

There’s an expression I heard once that goes something like, if you act as if then you will create the reality. So if you acted as if you were successful, you’d become successful. If you acted as if you had a social life, you’d have a social life. If you acted as if you could survive the loss of your person, you would.

When Joel was in the hospital and his death was looming, my as if was a phrase I would repeat often to myself. I now said it in a whisper to Sophie.

I held her under the covers, my mouth close to her ear.

“We’re going to be OK,” I said. “We’re going to be OK.”





TEN

Only Child, Only Parent

In the dark weeks that followed, there were beacons of light shining a path for Sophie and me to follow. Jillian and Ellie had set up a meal train to alleviate the burden of making dinner every night. Friends of mine from New York sent me restaurant gift cards. Another friend sent us gift certificates for manicures. Others offered to come over and do our laundry or walk the dogs. People were thinking of us, sending us their love, and we felt it.

One day a package came in the mail from a fellow writer friend. In it were two copies of Healing After Loss: Daily Meditations for Working Through Grief by Martha Whitmore Hickman. One for me, one for Sophie. Each page contained a meaningful quote, an anecdote, and a short meditation.

Every night before lights out, Sophie and I would read the day’s page out loud to each other. I would often cry. Some passages resonated, others not so much. We would follow the reading with a memory each of us had of Joel.

“He hated cilantro,” Sophie might say.

“Daddy loved taking you to school every morning,” I might say.