I started this post over a week ago. Have toyed with posting or not posting. Decided to post, so here we go . . .
Thanksgiving happened. It was my first one without
Ron. We generally went to our respective families’ Thanksgiving dinners
separately, so it is not like I missed him being at the actual dinner; he hadn't been there before. However, I did miss his enthusiasm for a holiday all
about eating great food. His planning and conspiring about delicious
eats. Watching him prep his contributions for his family’s meal. His assistance to me and my family as we
prepared ours. I have a whole series of texts with him from last
Thanksgiving in which he is teaching me, via phone, how to make garlic mashed
potatoes, Ron Clark style (which is the best way ever, duh).
His presence was missed in general with so much time spent
in Alma , as it always is for me
when I go to our hometown without him. I spent time with his family and
some of his friends. I am always so
acutely aware when I am with them that he was and is my main link to these
people. Now, I maintain and carry on these relationships even though he
is gone. His absence is constantly felt whenever I do things we did
together.
I remember my mother crying at
the table during our Thanksgiving dinner the first year after my maternal
grandmother passed away from cancer. She
died in November and yet my mother still went through preparing the big meal in
the same month she lost her mother. I do not know how she went through
those motions (cooking, eating, and hosting) when the loss was so fresh. If
I were in her shoes, I would have been inclined to just cancel it. Yet,
we carry on because we know life doesn't stop just because someone we love is
gone. Life just keeps coming, bringing one holiday after the next, one
sunrise after another, just as we put one foot in front of the other and inch
our way forward.
I wondered if my mother could
remember her own broken heart at that first Thanksgiving without her
mother. Or the way it felt for her to have a Thanksgiving years later,
with both parents gone. I wondered if anyone could really sense the deep
void I experienced at having a Thanksgiving without Ron. No one really talked
to me about it or asked me how I was doing with regard to being without Ron. Maybe they thought that to ask would be too
hard for me. I think people just never know what to say. Everyone experiences a loss differently. You may think you know what you would want if
you were the person grieving, but until you have been through a major loss, you
don’t really know. For myself, I can say
that it is helpful to have others recognize and acknowledge the truth because
this lets me know that it is a safe and accepting place for me to express my feelings. This Thanksgiving was treated like just
another holiday – not the significant first that it was for me . . . one of
many firsts that I will keep having until I get through this first year of life
after Ron’s death. It was hard and it has me dreading Christmas, though I
have since talked to my family about my concerns and they have all encouraged
me to be more open and let me know it is OK to be sad.
Adding to my sadness, my parents’ dog, Duffy, died the week
before Thanksgiving from an aggressive mouth cancer. So, he was missing from
their home and I was missing him. On top of that, my mom really struggled
with the void his death left in their household, so she and my brother went out
and got a new puppy the day before Thanksgiving. New puppies are cute and
everyone feels happy and makes a fuss over them when they are around.
Experiencing grief felt wrong in my parent’s house over this holiday weekend, filled
with sweet puppy breath and hilarity. When I needed to cry, I retreated
to the room I sleep in when visiting them. I found my solace on Facebook
and email and want to say thanks to all of you who continue to be there for me
during these difficult months.
During the holiday weekend, we
also had a baby shower for my brother and sister-in-law. It was well
attended, with relatives from both sides driving long distances and close
friends of Dustin and Carrie’s (and Ron’s) coming to shower them with
gifts. I was overwhelmed with so many people being at my parents’ house
at once, but happy to see the love and support Dustin and Carrie
received. I did my best to be a dutiful sister and to be helpful and
cheerful. I even had fun, smoking a cigar and having a beer with the guys
outside during the shower games – an honorary pseudo-dude.
Being at their baby shower
brought up memories of being at my friend Jessica’s baby shower in March
2009. I went to her shower on the day that would be the first time Ron
and I intentionally hung out together . . . you could call it a date, but it wasn't really a date. Ron and I had been talking online a little bit
since (re)meeting one another a few weeks earlier. I knew I would be in Alma
specifically for the shower that day, so I suggested he and I meet at our
mutual friends’ house for game night. I have blogged about that dorky
early encounter, so I won’t go into it in detail, though to think about it
still makes my stomach flip flop and my face blush. Suffice to say it was
a bittersweet memory to have during Dustin and Carrie’s shower, followed up by
all of us going over to our friends’ place for game night, just like Ron and I
did those years ago. Another first, game night without Ron. My
heart breaks with each of these firsts. Yet, sitting there feeling the
love I have for the friends I shared with Ron, spending time laughing them, I
also felt my heart swell. I know this is
what he would want – for these connections to remain in tact.
Baby showers.
Babies. I never wanted either. I still don’t. However, there
is something that pulls at me with each new pregnancy announcement I
hear. I feel this mixture of sadness and anger. Of course I also
feel so happy for my friends who are expecting or new parents or new parents
who are expecting again. Certainly I am overjoyed for Dustin and Carrie
and admittedly a little excited about becoming the most kickass roller-derbying
aunt this baby could ever have. But I would be lying if I didn't admit
that it bothers me a little, all these babies coming into the world when Ron
had to leave it.
It is something Ron and I
never got to have. Granted, we had shared our thoughts on having children
early in the relationship and decided we were perfect for each other because I didn't want them (still have not developed a maternal bone in my body) and Ron didn't ever want to risk passing on his genetic condition, Von Hippel-Lindau (VHL). We talked about maybe someday adopting. That was an idea
we, both of us being considerate givers, could agree on.
I know Ron really and truly loved kids and was great with
them from his years of working at Camp
Gordonwood
The truly unfair thing is, Ron never had much time to mull
it over, just like I never had time for the idea of kids to grow on me.
We never got to that point in our relationship. That is what pisses me
off and makes it hard with all these babies (at my age, it seems like everyone
I know is getting married and/or having babies on a near regular basis) being
born. I never got to get to that place
with the love of my life where we both wanted to have them. I won’t know
if we ever would have gotten to that place. It was all cut short too soon
to find out. It is not fair and that makes me mad.
It also makes me sad. A
couple times, after Ron had been diagnosed, I joked about wanting him to “knock
me up.” I joked about wanting to have his VHL-cancer-chemotherapy baby
that we were both sure would have come out a mutant (or maybe a superhero?)
with all the drugs he was on. I was never serious about it, yet we joke
about things we are subconsciously thinking, right? I mean, on some
level, I thought it, or I wouldn't have said it. There was a part of me that meant it.
Certainly of anyone with whom I have had a relationship, Ron is the only one I
could see myself co-parenting with. Of course I am happy for my friends
who are having babies, but that happiness is tinged with my own longing,
sadness, and regret that things for Ron and I didn't work out differently and didn't allow us the same opportunities as those around us.
In July, while getting ready
for work one morning, I was overcome with the need to see Ron again. To
be able to look into his eyes, comb his hair, see something of him reflected in
something living. I gripped the bathroom sink while sobs racked my entire
body and then I sunk to the floor, defeated. ‘Why, why why,’ I thought, ‘had
we not created a being together?’ Something that would have his
features. A place where his soul could still be reflected, at least a
tiny bit, in the eyes or in the smirk or in the talents or features. In
that moment, I hated myself for not being like most of my peers and wanting
babies from the get-go and talking him into it, in spite of the VHL stuff, when
we first realized we were each other’s “the one.” Possibly despicably, I
even seriously wished for a moment that we had tried to get pregnant while he
was sick. Obviously, this would be a foolish reason to have a baby and I
suspect the poor creature would have been messed up for life to know its origin
story (“Mommy made you so she wouldn't miss Daddy so much”), so it is good that
it didn't happen. But on this particular day in July, I would have given
anything to have a piece of Ron still in the living, breathing world.
It probably didn't help that I
was reading Stephanie Ericsson’s book Companion
Through the Darkness, in which she describes having her husband die while
she is pregnant with their only child. Part of what she writes about how the
responsibility to the baby growing inside her and love for their child influences
her grief. At the time I was reading this, I was teetering pretty heavily
on the side of not wanting to live - having a Ron Clark baby seemed like it
would have tethered me to the side of life.
My mother still believes I
will have a child some day. A daughter. She has had visions. She
says my daughter will have curly hair. I am 99% sure this will never come
to pass. I am a few months shy of 34 years old. Ron has been gone
for almost seven months and the thought of moving on and loving again still
fills me with such intense nausea that I taste bile on the back of my tongue whenever
I think about it. By the time I ever do get ready to love again, if that
day even comes to pass, I will be too old to be making babies. It’s
probably for the better.
I will just stick to what I
know – devoting my love to the memory and spirit of Ron, my friends, and my
family. I will stay involved with my new passion (roller derby) and my
old hobbies (photography, horses, writing) and my Ron Projects. I will
learn to be a good aunt and to dote on the new baby coming around the time of
my birthday in February. I don’t need my own spawn to reflect back to me
the love I had for Ron . . . it is mirrored in everything I do. I just
miss him so much . . . but no other being, whether carrying his genes or not,
could fill the void of his absence in my life.
To those of you making all these babies (and
getting married and having other great life growth events as a couple), please know
that I am happy for you. If my reactions don’t always seem up to par, accept
that it is just hard for me, even as happy as I am for you. It slaps me in
the face with all the big moments Ron and I didn’t get to have. I promise
you that I am genuinely happy for you – I am just at the same time learning to
cope with the mixture of feelings that comes for me with hearing about anyone
else’s good news. Don’t try to shield me from it, though. I have to be able to live with the fact that
just because my happily ever after story ended prematurely, others’ futures
will go on. I need to become better able to deal with it and I am
confident that some day I will be. Thanks for sharing your life with me
and bearing with me while I fumble forward in this new life of mine. Slowly,
it does get easier, but the hurt never completely goes away.
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