Widowish: A Memoir(59)
I smiled at my girl, locked her arm in mine, and the two of us sat there on the beach and stared out at the ocean, together.
TWENTY-ONE
God Laughs
Sometimes I imagine Joel on the basketball court. He’s sweaty, running, happy. He moves easily. He makes a block, grabs the ball, dribbles it down the court, and shoots a basket, scoring one for his team. I don’t know where this is, I can’t make out the other players, but the sun is shining, there is a slight breeze, and Joel looks and feels healthy. He is moving, he is happy, he is free.
I have finally been able to leave the hospital. I can now envision Joel as he was, and how he might have been if not for the MS, if not for the West Nile virus.
I discuss this with the two widows sitting next to me at Allison’s house. It’s a relief to remember my husband free of illness and distress. They understand this completely. We are comfortable speaking this language of grief and healing, and we speak it freely.
“Were your husbands athletic?” I ask.
“Dan played some sports in high school, but as an adult, he was more of a runner. It was his thinking time,” one of them says.
“And Mike wasn’t really into sports. He was into cheesecake. Is cheesecake a sport?”
We laugh, the three of us, and I excuse myself to talk to Allison in the kitchen.
“Such a great turnout!” she says.
“I can’t believe it!”
We both take in the group gathered in Allison’s living room. About ten widows, and three widowers.
“I think we can get started soon,” I tell Allison.
She nods yes, and we turn toward this group we’ve assembled.
Had I known when I was younger that this would be how my life ended up, I never would have believed it. But then again, I wouldn’t have believed so many things:
That Joel and I would end up married didn’t seem possible until he came to Seattle and found me.
That we would have only one child when we wanted so many wasn’t expected either, but our family ended up being perfect exactly the way it was.
That we wouldn’t grow old together never crossed my mind.
I never expected to be a widow in my midforties.
I also never expected to fall in love with my daughter’s guitar teacher.
They say if you want to make God laugh, tell Her your plans. I may have never uttered my plans out loud, but She is laughing anyway.
When I meet up with friends whom I haven’t seen in a while, and they ask how I’m doing, I’ll usually start with, I miss Joel. It’s hard not to cry in those moments. To this day, so many years later, I still say to those closest to me, Can you believe it? That this is my life? And they all say the same thing . . . No. I can’t.
What was so surreal in the early days of losing Joel is now simply reality, but still just as hard to fathom. Managing my grief has gotten easier, but I’m still grieving. I don’t think that ever stops. It just gets easier, since time, I’ve learned, is a miraculous healer.
While Marcos and I have no plans to live together anytime soon, we have discussed it. Things seem to work for us as they are, as unconventional as our relationship is. We agree that maintaining separate homes could be the key to our success. One time when we spoke about the possibility of living together, Marcos said, “You’ll bring your books and your music. We’ll have a shelf for Joel . . .” He accepts that Joel occupies a huge space in Sophie’s and my hearts, and that the shrine I have of Joel is coming with me wherever I go. I love him for that.
The shrine that sits on the shelf of my walk-in closet consists of a sealed bowl with some of his ashes. A photo of Joel taken at the Dodgers game the day he caught that fly ball. Next to that photo is the actual baseball, which is sealed in a see-through plastic box and has the date of the game in Joel’s handwriting on it. There’s another photo of Joel, Sophie, and me, all hugging our dog Lucy, from a day at a park. A purple magic fairy wand filled with stars and sparkles that Sophie liked to play with when she was a baby is there, too. I see these things every day. I make sure to take them all in.
It took some time, but Sophie and Marcos have forged a meaningful relationship. He is respectful and understanding of our memories of Joel, and Sophie appreciates it as much as I do. Marcos accepts that there is no replacing Joel, or even filling in for him. He provides unconditional support for our mother-daughter dynamic duo.
When Sophie had trouble passing her driving test the first time around, Marcos took over teaching her to drive and took her to the DMV for her next driving test. I stood at home pacing, staring at the clock, imagining every worst-case scenario.
“Sweetheart?” Marcos said when I picked up the phone. “She got the lady in the Hawaiian shirt.”
“Oh my God, no!” I yelled. There were rumors that this particular DMV was an easy pass, unless, of course, you got the Hawaiian shirt–wearing lady as your tester.
Marcos laughed. “It’s OK,” he said. “She’s in line now.”
“What line?” I asked, my heart pounding outside of my chest.
“The line where they take the picture. For the license. She passed.”
That Marcos didn’t begin the conversation with the good news was typical. But it didn’t matter. I sighed with relief and fell to my knees in tears. When we hung up, I picked up my favorite framed photo of Joel. “She did it, hun. Our baby girl is driving now. If you’re not sitting with her every time she gets behind the wheel, I will kill you!”