Hello. I know it's been a while
since I've written you, not for the lack of trying. I've just been trying to
figure things out. I noticed this morning that I saw a picture of you, and I
didn't get emotional. It wasn't some grandiose picture, you were cooking, but I
felt a strange feeling at the lack of feeling, you know. There was a time when
your picture hung everywhere in this house. Not sure if I just didn't want to
change things, or make sure that you were honored. It was hard. Seeing you was
hard. It sort of ripped out stitches of a wound you knew you had to let heal,
but couldn't stand the itch. The pictures came down, and instead of being
everywhere, I thought it best for everyone to put up the ones they wanted in a
special place, for just themselves. I couldn't bring you back, but I didn't
want to have to be reminded of that fact either.
It is interesting the pictures the
kids picked of you. Some are stoic, others are silly ones that you would
probably delete off your phone if you needed to free up some space. But for whatever
reason they picked the pictures, it is all their own. Nora's collection is most
pronounced. There you are on her bulletin board, making silly faces or
snuggling the tiniest version of her, and I chuckle when I see them. But they
are all she has...a piece of time captured with a short story to go along with
it. We talk about them from time to time, and you would love the twinkle she
gets in her eye while doing it.
It isn't for the lack of wanting to
talk to you. To glean some sort of insight on our offspring that are very
uniquely us in so many different ways. I wonder, and at times yearn for, what
your thoughts are on so many matters, our kids, politics and frankly life. I'm
not going to stroke your ego and assume you have all matters of life figured
out on the other side, but who the hell knows, you might. I see you a lot in
Abe lately, he has the same dead-pan sense of humor, and I can't imagine how
much you would laugh at his delivery of some of the things he says.
I hear you a lot when Oscar is
talking. I crack up at the fact that when his voice cracks, he'll actually
correct himself and say whatever he said all over again, as if to reaffirm that
it was just a glitch in the matrix. Today, he was all dressed up and he physically
looked like you, not a moment after I thought that Nora commented how adult he
looked. I pray that he and I will live to see the end of the puberty tunnel,
and desperately wish you were here to talk him through that.
Every time I meet someone new or
someone hears Atticus' name, there is always the same comment, "What an
interesting name..." I think of you instantly, trying and lobbying for his
name that at the time sounded so odd. You would bring up the Romans, Harper Lee
and say it with our last name and comment at how cool it sounded. He still
looks just like you, but every once and a while a little of me shines through.
He can't recall any story about you other than the ones he's been told. He is
as tough as nails and his favorite thing to do? Dance every Saturday night to
the Lawrence Welk show. His moves? They are all you.
I was told the other day, something
you said about me while on a family vacation. I was correcting our kids for
something that probably amounted to nothing, and as I flew out the back door,
you turned to my mom and said, "She's a bit of a bulldog, but she's my
bulldog." I hope one day someone else understands me like you did. More
importantly, I hope that I can let someone in to know me the way you did. I
have a problem of suddenly shutting people out for fear that they'll find out
how crazy I actually am. Maybe I should have gotten some therapy after you
passed, for that matter all of us. I guess I just thought I could make up the
difference, be enough for everyone. When I fall short of my own goals
it is one thing, when I fall short where our kids are concerned...well, it
is painful. I wish that you would just show up and tell me where to turn next.
Funny, I wouldn't have so easily let you boss me around when you were here.
I also saw a picture of me this
morning, and I honestly didn't recognize myself. I wondered if the person in
the picture would be anyone you would recognize. So much has changed, and keeps
changing that I wonder if this is how it is supposed to go. I thought of the
old line from that chick flick you couldn't stand, "Honey, time marches
on, and eventually you realize it's marching across your face." Thank you,
Truvy, from Steel Magnolias. What I saw was a mixture of time and an
innocence that I didn't remember having. The anniversary of "writing to
quiet the voices in my head" was just the other day. I remember feeling
the need to write because you and I were going through different stages of
grief after losing baby Thomas. But unknowingly, maybe I was setting myself
up for other voices that would be babbling around my head today.
So, I'm not sure how to end this.
"Take care and have a great day..." doesn't seem appropriate. I guess
I just needed to take a minute and talk to you, hoping for a little guidance
or a little wisdom. Maybe I've just hit my “middlescence,” ironically my
word of the day. Please know that we are doing well, we've had no visits to the
ER yet this year and I can hear you laughing every morning while I'm cleaning
the litter box that our kids talked me into getting a damned cat. Until next
time...
