Happy 57th Birthday, Sean
It’s the shortest day of the year in New Zealand, the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere and the day our Prime Minister gave birth to a baby girl. The kids and I have a another reason to celebrate and be sad - today would’ve been Sean’s 57th birthday.
Tonight, I showed Fiona photos of Sean taken the month before he got sick, when we were on holiday and when he took her to kindergarten on her first day. Fi looked at me with big, sad eyes, saying, “I’m glad we have those photos, because I’m forgetting what Daddy looked like.” I hugged her, and told her I understood, that she’s proof Daddy and I loved each other. If it weren’t for Fiona and Finley, most days I wouldn’t believe Sean and I had been married ten years. It was another life, a period marked by our babies’ arrivals, the move to a new neighborhood and the start of new jobs for both of us. We were percolating with possibilities until one of us vanished. We were no longer. No we, just me - and kids.
It’s been eight years since Sean died, and I feel like a new widow. I’m grieving more deeply than normal, thinking of him more than usual and I’ve unintentionally dropped about 6 kg (around 14 pounds) the past eight months, just as I did in the months after I lost Sean. Damn, I wish I could bottle that stuff, or write a how-to book. I’d be rich. You’re supposed to be able to run faster with less weight, but I find I’m slower these days. This pisses me off.
I feel guilty about foisting 2018 problems on the husband who died in 2010. It seems unfair to dump on him that way, like finding religion after a terminal diagnosis. Too little, too late? Mostly, the kids keep me - I keep me - too busy to wallow. A reckoning will come - the empty nest meltdown. All the grief work I postponed in the months and early years after Sean’s death will boomerang and whack me in the head.
Aside from summer holidays, Pete (husband #2, which makes me sound like a socialite), hasn’t lived with us full-time since mid-September. That’s when he started his third flight school job within a 12-month period. He returns home every other weekend for fewer than 48 hours, because it’s a four-hour drive. One-way. I do not recommend this arrangement. It’s supposed to be temporary; we said we’d give it a year, something I regretted about three months into the experiment.
I feel like a solo mum again. Nearly all the dinners - just me and the kids. All the taxi runs - me and other mums and dads who carpool. Nearly all the nights - alone, though if I’m lucky, the kids will sit in the front room with me while I read and they watch their flickering screens. Twenty minutes on the phone each night is a sparse substitute for a face-to-face debrief with another grown-up. It’s lonely, and not the life I expected. I didn’t expect Sean to die, either. I joke I repel men, and maybe I should switch teams. A friend reminds me lesbians have relationship issues, too.
It’s not all thunder and gloom. I am, after all, used to running the show, and the kids and I are heading out soon for an adventure. We are a threesome again. Also, unlike many people who are truly suffering in our community, we have a home, heat, and food in the pantry.
See? This was meant to be a remembrance of Sean and I’ve turned it into a tiny pity party for one. I just slapped my own hand. Breathe. Why does everyone tell you to breathe? It’s involuntary. It’s gonna happen on its own. Like birth. Like death. Sometimes, breath must be the focus, because it’s hard to complicate breathing. Or forget it. Like how I worry I’ll forget Sean’s look, laugh, dozens of hiccups after too much Tequila, being outed by coworkers for smelling like steak au poivre, the careful walk along an icy South Michigan pier, a picnic where I reveal the gender of a gestating Fiona. Or was it Finley?
Memory is slippery and malleable. We think we know what happened - where we were, who we were with, what we did. I don’t. I need photos, journals, Facebook, gentle nudging and understanding when it takes a while to marshal a memory I used to own. So much has happened. How do you remember all the colours of the horses on a spinning carousel?
Fiona places three small candles in a chocolate-frosted, chocolate chip cupcake and lights them. Finley starts singing, “Happy birthday to you…” We serenade Sean, whereever he may be, and the kids blow out the flames. We hug. Fiona asks for another tissue before picking up Ally, who she’s convinced is Daddy, re-packaged in a fluffy white-and-caramel-colored dog suit. Ally licks her tears. I’m pretty sure the dog was chewing her own poop last night, because I found a nugget when I came downstairs this morning.
That’s life. Just when you find a whisper of peace, imagining the spirit of your dead husband within your beloved dog, you realise the dog has eaten feces.
Happy birthday, Sean. We will always love you.
It’s the shortest day of the year in New Zealand, the longest day of the year in the Northern Hemisphere and the day our Prime Minister gave birth to a baby girl. The kids and I have a another reason to celebrate and be sad - today would’ve been Sean’s 57th birthday.
Tonight, I showed Fiona photos of Sean taken the month before he got sick, when we were on holiday and when he took her to kindergarten on her first day. Fi looked at me with big, sad eyes, saying, “I’m glad we have those photos, because I’m forgetting what Daddy looked like.” I hugged her, and told her I understood, that she’s proof Daddy and I loved each other. If it weren’t for Fiona and Finley, most days I wouldn’t believe Sean and I had been married ten years. It was another life, a period marked by our babies’ arrivals, the move to a new neighborhood and the start of new jobs for both of us. We were percolating with possibilities until one of us vanished. We were no longer. No we, just me - and kids.
It’s been eight years since Sean died, and I feel like a new widow. I’m grieving more deeply than normal, thinking of him more than usual and I’ve unintentionally dropped about 6 kg (around 14 pounds) the past eight months, just as I did in the months after I lost Sean. Damn, I wish I could bottle that stuff, or write a how-to book. I’d be rich. You’re supposed to be able to run faster with less weight, but I find I’m slower these days. This pisses me off.
I feel guilty about foisting 2018 problems on the husband who died in 2010. It seems unfair to dump on him that way, like finding religion after a terminal diagnosis. Too little, too late? Mostly, the kids keep me - I keep me - too busy to wallow. A reckoning will come - the empty nest meltdown. All the grief work I postponed in the months and early years after Sean’s death will boomerang and whack me in the head.
I feel like a solo mum again. Nearly all the dinners - just me and the kids. All the taxi runs - me and other mums and dads who carpool. Nearly all the nights - alone, though if I’m lucky, the kids will sit in the front room with me while I read and they watch their flickering screens. Twenty minutes on the phone each night is a sparse substitute for a face-to-face debrief with another grown-up. It’s lonely, and not the life I expected. I didn’t expect Sean to die, either. I joke I repel men, and maybe I should switch teams. A friend reminds me lesbians have relationship issues, too.
It’s not all thunder and gloom. I am, after all, used to running the show, and the kids and I are heading out soon for an adventure. We are a threesome again. Also, unlike many people who are truly suffering in our community, we have a home, heat, and food in the pantry.
See? This was meant to be a remembrance of Sean and I’ve turned it into a tiny pity party for one. I just slapped my own hand. Breathe. Why does everyone tell you to breathe? It’s involuntary. It’s gonna happen on its own. Like birth. Like death. Sometimes, breath must be the focus, because it’s hard to complicate breathing. Or forget it. Like how I worry I’ll forget Sean’s look, laugh, dozens of hiccups after too much Tequila, being outed by coworkers for smelling like steak au poivre, the careful walk along an icy South Michigan pier, a picnic where I reveal the gender of a gestating Fiona. Or was it Finley?
Memory is slippery and malleable. We think we know what happened - where we were, who we were with, what we did. I don’t. I need photos, journals, Facebook, gentle nudging and understanding when it takes a while to marshal a memory I used to own. So much has happened. How do you remember all the colours of the horses on a spinning carousel?
Fiona places three small candles in a chocolate-frosted, chocolate chip cupcake and lights them. Finley starts singing, “Happy birthday to you…” We serenade Sean, whereever he may be, and the kids blow out the flames. We hug. Fiona asks for another tissue before picking up Ally, who she’s convinced is Daddy, re-packaged in a fluffy white-and-caramel-colored dog suit. Ally licks her tears. I’m pretty sure the dog was chewing her own poop last night, because I found a nugget when I came downstairs this morning.
That’s life. Just when you find a whisper of peace, imagining the spirit of your dead husband within your beloved dog, you realise the dog has eaten feces.
Happy birthday, Sean. We will always love you.
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