Ashes Round the Yard
My kids are getting big. I have evidence for this: today, I decided to make a pot of tea, put some cookies on a plate, and read a book. I got all cozy on the broken (comfiest) part of the couch, put a quilt on my lap, and started to read. And, like cats, the kids quietly gathered.
Makani had volume one of Heaven official's blessing-- I silently cheers-ed him with my book, since I was reading volume four. He cheersed back solemnly, and settled into the squashy chair with his tea. Maile appeared and settled next to me to read the I-Ching, and then sat on the carpet, casting oracles with three coins. Yin, Yang, like binary code, conjuring scraps of poetry and fortunetelling. Liko, not to be out-classed, helped herself to tea and cookies (rejected my strawberry kit-kat, thank goodness), and read Junie B Jones And The Stupid Smelly Bus, which is her very first chapter book.
The lights were on the christmas tree, the cat curled her tail around her neat toes and blinked at us, the wind shook the willows, and I thought-- this is bliss. This is heaven.
I get to hang out with these kids who make me cackle with hilarity every day, who impress me with their insight and hard work, who terrify me with their fragility and brilliance. I'm at the sweet spot of parenting--I'm old enough to let the small stuff go (and, hyuck hyuck, it's all small stuff) but young enough to try to keep up, make a hash of it, and get up laughing.
I'm greedy with it, jealous of myself, that I get to have all this delight to myself. I'm a mama dragon hoarding the good gold of these gorgeous moments with my dragon babies.
And. And I'm so pissed off-- where is their dad? Why isn't he here to savor these amazing people, to be astonished and impressed and humbled and entertained?
It's so unfair that he doesn't know them. He only saw the little twiglets, the little wee sproutkins, that hinted at the strength and the insight and the sweetness in them, but now, around the tea pot, in the quiet post-christmas pre-new years week of cheese, these riches are all mine.
I'm so grateful it hurts my heart, I'm so sad, I'm sick to my stomach about it.
Ach, maudlin naval gazing. It's the right time of year for it.
Today Makani and I went to get his passport renewed for a school trip in the Spring. The lady helping us asked about the other parent. I handed her the envelope with Matt's death certificate inside. She took it to the back to make a copy, and Makani joked, "here he is!" and mimed blowing a handful of ash all over the USPS countertop. We giggled. Horrible! Dreadful! Hilarious!!
We cope by cackling.
The October after Matt died, his phone (which had also, like a loyal dog, shuffled off this mortal coil when its master did) suddenly turned back on. I frantically went through his texts and photos and notes, trying to back up his data before the phone gave up the ghost for good. I gathered digital ephemera: music playlists, photos of the cats, travel itineraries-- the good things. And I found suicide note.
It was a poem. He wrote it sometime in the year before he died, and carried it around in his pocket, a digital little dead-weight, while making plans, while making promises, while telling jokes and planting gardens and learning songs and finding art.
"Bury me under a tree in your yard, so the kids can play in my branches. Maybe I'll be strong enough to be their father as a tree, since I am not strong enough to be their father as a man. You and your new good husband will raise our kids better than I could."
He tortured himself with the image of us happy without him. In dark moments, he would tell me, with total prophetic conviction, that there was some better other husband out there for me, someone who could love me and raise our kids better. I would argue-- that's imaginary, that's not real. BE their dad, BE my husband, here and now! But the image was too strong, I guess. He believed it too much: a vision of our freedom and contentment without him. Well, with him, as ashes under the tree.
I don't know what I think about honoring the wishes of the dead. Maybe I can't make any generalizations. But I think in this case, I don't want to make his suicidal vision true. I don't want to give him the evidence that he was right, that he will make a good tree.
Because I don't want him to be a tree. I don't want him to be a handful of marbles with flecks of ash inside, or a grim joke.
I wish he was here, enjoying the rich honey-gold gifts of our children getting bigger, stronger, smarter every day.
Makani had volume one of Heaven official's blessing-- I silently cheers-ed him with my book, since I was reading volume four. He cheersed back solemnly, and settled into the squashy chair with his tea. Maile appeared and settled next to me to read the I-Ching, and then sat on the carpet, casting oracles with three coins. Yin, Yang, like binary code, conjuring scraps of poetry and fortunetelling. Liko, not to be out-classed, helped herself to tea and cookies (rejected my strawberry kit-kat, thank goodness), and read Junie B Jones And The Stupid Smelly Bus, which is her very first chapter book.
The lights were on the christmas tree, the cat curled her tail around her neat toes and blinked at us, the wind shook the willows, and I thought-- this is bliss. This is heaven.
I get to hang out with these kids who make me cackle with hilarity every day, who impress me with their insight and hard work, who terrify me with their fragility and brilliance. I'm at the sweet spot of parenting--I'm old enough to let the small stuff go (and, hyuck hyuck, it's all small stuff) but young enough to try to keep up, make a hash of it, and get up laughing.
I'm greedy with it, jealous of myself, that I get to have all this delight to myself. I'm a mama dragon hoarding the good gold of these gorgeous moments with my dragon babies.
And. And I'm so pissed off-- where is their dad? Why isn't he here to savor these amazing people, to be astonished and impressed and humbled and entertained?
It's so unfair that he doesn't know them. He only saw the little twiglets, the little wee sproutkins, that hinted at the strength and the insight and the sweetness in them, but now, around the tea pot, in the quiet post-christmas pre-new years week of cheese, these riches are all mine.
I'm so grateful it hurts my heart, I'm so sad, I'm sick to my stomach about it.
Ach, maudlin naval gazing. It's the right time of year for it.
Today Makani and I went to get his passport renewed for a school trip in the Spring. The lady helping us asked about the other parent. I handed her the envelope with Matt's death certificate inside. She took it to the back to make a copy, and Makani joked, "here he is!" and mimed blowing a handful of ash all over the USPS countertop. We giggled. Horrible! Dreadful! Hilarious!!
We cope by cackling.
The October after Matt died, his phone (which had also, like a loyal dog, shuffled off this mortal coil when its master did) suddenly turned back on. I frantically went through his texts and photos and notes, trying to back up his data before the phone gave up the ghost for good. I gathered digital ephemera: music playlists, photos of the cats, travel itineraries-- the good things. And I found suicide note.
It was a poem. He wrote it sometime in the year before he died, and carried it around in his pocket, a digital little dead-weight, while making plans, while making promises, while telling jokes and planting gardens and learning songs and finding art.
"Bury me under a tree in your yard, so the kids can play in my branches. Maybe I'll be strong enough to be their father as a tree, since I am not strong enough to be their father as a man. You and your new good husband will raise our kids better than I could."
He tortured himself with the image of us happy without him. In dark moments, he would tell me, with total prophetic conviction, that there was some better other husband out there for me, someone who could love me and raise our kids better. I would argue-- that's imaginary, that's not real. BE their dad, BE my husband, here and now! But the image was too strong, I guess. He believed it too much: a vision of our freedom and contentment without him. Well, with him, as ashes under the tree.
I don't know what I think about honoring the wishes of the dead. Maybe I can't make any generalizations. But I think in this case, I don't want to make his suicidal vision true. I don't want to give him the evidence that he was right, that he will make a good tree.
Because I don't want him to be a tree. I don't want him to be a handful of marbles with flecks of ash inside, or a grim joke.
I wish he was here, enjoying the rich honey-gold gifts of our children getting bigger, stronger, smarter every day.
"We cope by cackling." Amen. Thank you, r'Beeka, for this blog entry. Your last sentence's "rich honey-gold gifts of our children" takes me back to the Hanakkah 8 more years Song your mother wrote and sang with vocal warmthh and vision. You are both wise from experience and oracles. And cacklings. My love to you wafts from Connecticut. --- mapp
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