The Mirror Project

I am working on many different Ron projects.  Some of them are ways to remember, make keepsakes, and preserve the memories we shared.  Many are efforts to have tangible proof of our love that I can easily look to when my mind starts to play tricks on me.  All of them are time consuming and have me deeply concentrating on him, us, and sometimes even myself.  The work of producing them is genuinely therapeutic.  I feel best when I am working on my Ron projects.  I have had less time to do so lately, with social weekends and a fuller schedule during the week as I squeeze in appointments with the therapist, grief counselor, doctor, etc. around my work schedule. 

I admit that there are times when I resent all this busyness.  How can life move on when I still have so much work to do around what has happened?  I cannot believe it is August.  Life moves too fast for someone who would rather be stuck back in time, three months ago, before his death . . . or better yet, two or three years ago, before the word “cancer,” before the sadness, before everything changed forever.

One of my projects is finished.  Why do I feel compelled to share it?  I question this.  Do I need to make visible to others my love for Ron and his love for me?  Is it somehow not real unless it becomes public?  Why not just do these things and do them secretly and quietly and without fanfare?  I am not sure I have the answers.  All I know is, there is a need to share what I am doing, now that Ron and I have both made our processes during this time so public.  I don’t really know if anyone is still following along.  I don’t really know if what I say here will help or change or make a difference for anyone.  I don’t really know if any of this has any meaning for anyone other than me.  Maybe it doesn’t need to.  Maybe writing these posts is just more therapy for me.  I am not sure.  I just know I feel better when I post, so I will keep doing so until I don’t need to anymore.

The idea for the mirror project started when I arrived home from Texas.  I had taken with me a note Ron wrote me.  It says, “Hey Babydoll, I love you so incredibly much!  I fall asleep every night thankful that I’ve had another day with you.  You definitely make me the luckiest dude ever!  I love you! –Ron Clark”  (He wrote it after he had been diagnosed.  I always marveled at how he could be thankful or consider himself lucky when he knew he was dying.  That’s Ron, though, enjoying every moment he had and joyfully expressing himself to others.)  I took this note to Texas to have something to help me remember his love at a time when I was geographically far away from the home we shared.  When I got back, I tucked the note into the corner of my bathroom mirror so that I would see if everyday (you can see it in the picture I posted here).  My image, Ron’s words, reflected back to me daily.  I wondered about making a more permanent installation . . . and one where I didn’t worry about the original note somehow getting damaged.

Ron and I wrote many things to one another.  Much of the longer correspondence is from during our distance relationship.  Once he moved in, we could talk to each other, so had less need to write, but we still would pen little notes to one another.  I usually left mine on the kitchen counter.  Ron mostly wrote on small slips of paper and folded them really tiny and stuck them in my lunch bag so that I wouldn’t find them until after I was at work.  He did not do this everyday, so it kept me on my toes as to whether I would get a note or not.  But he did it frequently until he got too sick to get up with me anymore.  When I found one, I would unfold it, read the words, and put it by my computer monitor so I could read it all day long.  He gave me many more notes than I gave him after we were living together (but I definitely sent more written correspondence when we were living apart, so that has to even things out, right?).  He took great joy in sneaking these notes into my bag.  I suspect he often woke up early to see me off to work (before going back to bed) primarily for the act of writing and sneaking notes.  He was consistently and in every way so expressive and loving throughout all of my time with him.  I was truly fortunate to be in a relationship with such a great communicator. 

So, after Texas, I started to get an idea, ‘what if I copied some of my favorite notes from the ones Ron wrote (all of which I kept) and put them around a mirror so that I could have his love surrounding me when I look at it?’  This is important because I am my own worst enemy and super critical of myself.  I do not look at myself kindly.  Mirrors are not generally my friends.  Not that the critic in my head only cares about looks, she pretty much thinks I suck in all facets of life.  I need to be able to see myself more like Ron did.  In fact, he used to say, from time to time, when I was being really down on myself or flippantly dismissing a compliment he paid me, “I wish you could see yourself the way I do, just for a second even.”  I agreed with him – I wished I could, too. 

I copied my favorites.  I tore them out, like Ron would have, rather than cutting them.  I had intended to have one mirror completely covered with notes overlapping each other.  However, I found it hard to choose which notes would be partially hidden.  I realized it would drive me crazy not to be able to read a note in its entirety.  So, I wound up with two small mirrors.  Rather than separate them, I hung them side by side. 

They are in my bathroom.  It is a place I will see them daily.  I felt a little weird putting them where guests can also see them, but had some encouragement.  It is an expression of love . . . who couldn’t use a little more of that in their life?

Without Ron around, I don’t feel like there is anyone who can see me the way he did and love me as completely as he did.  In therapy, one of the goals is to help me to see myself more like how Ron saw me.  The mirror project is an extension of that idea.  It is also a celebration of our love – something I can look at and read daily that helps me remember what it felt like to be loved by Ron.  Proof, for when I fill myself with doubt, that he did, in fact, love me . . . very much . . . as I love him.

PS - To everyone out there, be sure to save those quick little notes you’ve exchanged with your loved ones.  You never know it might be helpful to reflect back on them (or turn them into an arts and crafts project).