It’s a desperate assumption, one that I need, one that that allows me to put me feet on the floor (even if it is in the running position) and rise into this new day. It's an assumption that Buddhists’ know to be flawed….nothing is permanent but impermance. Everything is always changing.
When I arrive at school to drop of the kids, I go to the office to find Mindy’s desk full of gifts. (Mindy is a member of my Sit-Down-and-Cry PS#1 Support team).
The student gift exchange.
I have been sucker punched. I ask in a wobbly voice “They’re due today?”
Maggie (another member of member of my Sit-Down-and-Cry PS#1 Support team) senses the tears welling behind my sunglasses, puts her hand on my arm and says “You are doing the best you can.”
I nod.
I know I am but it just doesn’t seem to be best enough.
Two kids (not my own) are depending on me to pull my shit together so they can get gifts “made” by my two kids. There is no shirking that. Or saying I can’t.
And had I not gone up to the office, had I just used the drop off line, I would have completely forgotten those two kids.
I stand there, holding my sobs down like a person giving CPR, with force and meaning and hope. I am angry and disappointed in myself.
I remember between compressions…..I am not “over” his death.
I function with my chin just above the water line.
It is better than having my nose above the water line. But it is not far enough away for me to expect “functioning” to be normal thing.
And every day I get out of bed, I expect the water line to recede. It does, but slowly. Some days, like today, it rises.
And I forget that. I forget that it can rise, quickly with the simple provocation of something I forgot.
I remember.
He has only been gone for 234 days, only 5,616 hours. Not long enough for anything to be normal.
I leave the office and head to a store. This year those kids will get gifts made by me and not my children.
I exhale, I cry, I let go.
That is truly the BEST I can do.
I have nothing else to offer.
---
7:20 PM
I have been crying for the good part of the day.
Every time I stretch, attempt to function, to work, to think, I find myself gently sobbing. Kinda like others burst out in song.
I cannot figure out why. Nothing triggered me or was it all these things triggering me?
It doesn't really matter. Since his death, I no longer need to find a reason to cry.
I have to get in the car, with the other two and pick Langston up from his science partner's hours in Beverly Hills... the hills part, like near Mulholland Drive part Beverly Hills.
If I am lucky, I will be home in an hour.
I keep putting it off.
Hoping that somehow he will miraculously appear on the doorstep.
And if he did, I wouldn't have to burst out in tears in the car....again.
No comments:
Post a Comment