Signs of Life (18 page)

I tell Kai all of this. Then, after he falls asleep, I start talking to Josh. I say, “Can you see me? Can you see me now?” I have a little edge in my voice as I speak because I am frustrated. “I’m the only one here. I’m the only one to wake up with him in the morning. I’m the only body that can rock him back to sleep. Can you see me, standing alone in our bedroom, rocking our son by myself? The bedroom shouldn’t even look like this. We should still be arguing about paint colors and closet doors.”

Standing there at 4:00 a.m., looking at the dimly lit bedroom, thinking about what my life should be like, I realize what today is supposed to be like. A day where I can be free to wallow. Every other day I use all of my energy to convince myself, either through thought or action, that I can do this. I can take on this new life. I can be the single supermom and my son will be fantastically successful. I make myself think about all the things
I have to be thankful for, all the people I have to love. But days like anniversaries and birthdays, these are the days where I can sit back, let go of my effort to appear normal, and say, “Life is not fair. I’m not supposed to be a single mom. I was robbed.” For a few hours, maybe not even that long, I can revel in the fact that Josh was unfairly taken from me and that sometimes my life sucks more than I ever imagined it could. Although I try to be noble and courageous, today for a few short hours I get to be sad. Nothing but sad. Not just stare-out-the-window-and-shed-a-little-tear sad. I’m talking curl-up-in-the-fetal-position-and-cry-into-Josh’s-bike-jerseys sad.

I finally put Kai down and I get back into bed. Literally, seconds after I close my eyes I see, through my eyelids, a giant flash of light. I fly up and hear a huge rumble outside my bedroom window. I walk over to the window, pull down the shades, and realize it is thundering and lightning in the midst of the snowstorm. I’ve never seen this happen before. Two more flashes of lightning follow. I feel like Josh is talking back. Or maybe he knows it’s our anniversary too, and he is sitting up in heaven, angry and sad like me, and out of nowhere he tackled St. Peter or God or whomever right to the ground. The thunder and lightning was Josh, rolling around on the floor, with some saint, using his best wrestling moves from high school. He is mad. He probably pinned God and started yelling, “Why am I here? Why is my wife alone?” Then quickly, God’s security guards come running in and drag Josh off.

In just a few hours there are about five inches of snow on the ground. My dad comes over to clear my driveway and sidewalk. I watch him through the kitchen window. My dad looks old. I can see the creases in his skin from where I stand. He looks tired. The wind blows his brown wispy hair around. But he clears the driveway. I know he feels like this is the least he can
do. When my dad gets sad, he has to translate his emotions into some sort of physical work. This is his grief this morning.

A little after one o’clock in the afternoon, I get Kai and the dogs settled at my parents’ house. I get back in the car and put on Bob Seger. Josh and I loved listening to the
Greatest Hits
album on the way up north. We would make up our own lyrics to the song “Night Moves.” Now the sound of Bob Seger’s voice is like pitocin for my tear ducts. Every time I hear the song “Night Moves,” I just lose it. Today I want to lose it.

When I get home, I clear off the dining room table. It is important that there is nothing on the table. I even spray it with Mrs. Meyer’s countertop spray to make it look clean. Then I set out two candles. Each candle sits on top of a glass container. The containers hold dried flower petals from Josh’s funeral. One of my students, Brad, lost his dad in an accident right before he started his freshman year. I had Brad in class for a few years and I got to know his mom fairly well. Right after Josh’s accident, she told me about drying the funeral flowers and saving them. The piece of advice seemed so odd, a strange logistical detail from the
Widows’ Underground Handbook
, but I did it. I did it because she told me to and I knew that she knew more than anyone else at that moment in time. On the day of my wedding anniversary, I clean the dining room table off and light the candles. Even before I take off my coat, I clear the table, set up the candles, and light them. For some reason, I couldn’t do anything else until I lit the candles.

I go downstairs. The minute I walk into the storage room, I start crying. I cry so hard I am hunched over, my knees bent, my hand over my mouth. I heave air in and out. Snot comes pouring out of my nose. My vision is blurry with tears. I haven’t cried like this since the summer. I look at all of his bike jerseys, his old button-down shirts, his shoes. I look at the bookshelf
and all of his old books.
The Greatest Fly Fishing Worldwide, The Power of One, The Red Badge of Courage, Trout Bum, The Climb, A Short History of Nearly Everything
. I look through his CDs and old pictures. Then I come upstairs and boot up his computer. I go through his pictures. I go through all of his work résumés and saved work documents. I just want to find things that he wrote, that he had typed into the keyboard. I go on the Internet and look through the search history. I try to find things I haven’t seen before.

I go into his gear closet and go through his old backpacks. I just look for stuff that hasn’t been cleaned out yet. I want to find something that had been last touched by him. I just want some evidence that he had been here, that he was a part of this house once. His body, his hands, his feet had been in shoes, his chest had filled these empty jackets.

I go into our bedroom and go through the stack of pictures I kept from the funeral. I love those pictures. It’s the same stack of pictures I looked at every day during the summer. I go through his wallet. He has a Moomers ice cream card (his all-time favorite ice-cream store in Traverse City) with three holes punched through it, a Jet’s Pizza card with one hole punched through it, his medical alert paper, his REI membership card, his Manchester United Club membership card, a gift card to Best Buy, and three ticket stubs from
Spider-Man
. It’s like walking through a museum. I am certain that I will keep everything in the same order it was in on the day that someone handed me that wallet.

Finally, at 3:07, I blow out the candles. I can’t say that I feel better. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to say I feel better. All I know is it feels good to cry that hard. It’s like cleaning the leaves out from the gutters. If the leaves sit there too long, they weigh on the metal and hurt the house. But it doesn’t bring
him back. Someday I’ll realize that nothing will bring him back.

•  •  •

Kai and I spend Christmas morning at my parents’ house, then around noon go to Deedee’s house. To my utter delight, Ashley bought me the one thing I really wanted. Extra-large Hanes men’s sweatpants. Two pairs, actually. One light gray and one dark gray.

“Yes!” I exclaim as I open the box. “I am so happy you took me seriously when I asked for these!” She looks at me a little perplexed. She still doesn’t understand why a twenty-five-year-old female would want two pairs of men’s XL sweats. I spend 90 percent of my day wishing I could go back to bed, but I can’t go back to bed, so I’m just trying to wear my bed on my body. I wear my blue bathrobe all the time, but the sweatpants really complete the outfit.

Later in the evening Mathews comes over to my parents’ house. He sets down a beautifully wrapped rectangular-shaped present. I speculate that it’s a picture of Josh, him, and me. I didn’t expect something sentimental, but how nice of him.

It’s not a picture frame. It’s a book,
The Science of Breath: A Practical Guide to Controlling the Breath, Mind, and Body
. I give him an evil look. He starts laughing hysterically.

“What the hell is this supposed to mean?” I ask, smiling. He tells me he thinks maybe I could use a little help in keeping calm and staying centered. I throw the book at him. “I don’t have time for staying centered,” I yell at him. He tells me that’s the whole point.

The day after Christmas is also a big tradition in Josh’s family. Ever since I started dating Josh, I’ve gone to Cousin Shannon’s
house the day after Christmas. I can never remember how exactly they are related, but nobody really seems to care. This is obviously my first year going to Shannon’s without Josh. I am fearful because I know it will be hard and I don’t want to bring down the festive spirit. But there is one key motivating factor in going to Shannon’s. Her son, Spencer.

Spencer is five. Last year we went to Shannon’s house and Josh and Spencer spent a lot of time together. They lay together on Spencer’s beanbag chair and just talked. I remember Josh telling me that they talked about how Spencer liked juice and race car games. Josh was so impressed that a four-year-old could sit and talk to an adult for that long. During the beanbag talk, Spencer asked Josh if he could come out to our house and spend the night. Josh agreed instantly. Unlike many adults who throw out promises to kids only to promptly forget them, Josh made sure Spencer came over for his sleepover. It was hilarious. At ten o’clock at night they went to Meijer and Josh bought Spencer any cereal he wanted. They came back and sat on the couch and ate Cap’n Crunch and watched the movie
Cars
. They both had a blast. After Josh died, Shannon told me how mature and understanding Spencer had been about Josh’s death. Shortly after the funeral, Spencer asked Shannon if they could print out some pictures of Josh so he could have them in his room. They picked out the picture of Spencer and Josh together on the beanbag chair and they printed out a picture of Josh and me at our wedding.

About halfway through the party, I quietly ask Spencer to show me his pictures of Josh. I know I will cry, but I feel like I owe it to Spencer to see his pictures. He takes me up to his room and points to the shelf above his bed. Shannon said that Spencer had asked her to put them above his bed.

As usual, whenever I see a picture of Josh that I haven’t seen before, I start to cry. At first I try to distract myself by averting
my eyes to other things on his shelf, but deep down I know that Spencer is okay with seeing me cry. He knows. He knows how to do this better than most adults.

•  •  •

At the beginning of December, I looked at the calendar and saw a lot of scary dates. My anniversary, Josh’s birthday, Chris’s birthday, Christmas. Everyone worried about me on those dates. Today is New Year’s Eve, which for me is perhaps a worse day than any other holiday. New Year’s Eve was the night that Josh and I first kissed. It was our first kiss and then a new year. It was a new beginning for both of us. That night changed my life.

In the afternoon, I am at Potbelly Sandwich Shop, picking up a sandwich for Chris who is still in town for the holidays. It’s the first time in a few days where I have been out by myself, where I’ve had a moment to myself to just think. While I wait for Chris’s order, I think about how sad this day is. A secret-sad day. A new year. New Year’s is a stupid holiday to begin with, but this year obviously, it’s a lot worse.

Last year on this day I was sitting in my basement with Josh and all of my friends. I was a little drunk and Josh and I were laughing as I wrote down in a random notebook all of the events that had occurred in our lives throughout the year. But now, I can’t write in that journal. What would I possibly write? “Josh died.” How ridiculous. I am sad as I walk out of Potbelly, I would even venture to say I am feeling sorry for myself. All of the sudden I hear a voice say, “Excuse me.” I turn around and there is a woman driving a large rusted-over blue van. She has brown hair to her shoulders and big round glasses.

I turn around and look at her and she doesn’t say anything. She sits there, staring at me, scratching the top of her hand. She
looks uncomfortable, like she has a stomachache. She stares at me for a couple of seconds, so long that I think this is not the woman who had said “excuse me.” Finally she says, “Can you help me get some food for my kids?” I glance in the rear windows and see at least two tiny heads bopping around in the backseat. I look at her and say, “I’m sorry,” and I keep walking.

I get into my car and instantly feel horrible. I suddenly realize I made the wrong choice. I said no because I was afraid that she wasn’t being honest with me or she would follow me home or something else. But in my heart I know none of those are true. She was just a woman with children and they wanted something to eat. And now she is gone.

I drive home and relay everything to Chris. I am ashamed of myself for not helping. I can tell he wishes he could’ve been with me because he would’ve done something. He tells me next time I should go in and buy the person food. It suddenly occurs to me that she didn’t ask for money, she asked for food, which only makes me feel worse. I spend so much time thinking about myself and my own problems and the one shot I had to come up for air and think about someone else for one second—someone who was really in need—I turned my back. I turned my back on a mom with hungry children. I feel so guilty for not doing anything.

I look at Kai asleep in Chris’s arms. Kai is so fat. Part of the reason we love fat babies is because we know that they are full. Full of food, full of love, full of everything we can possibly give them. Shame on me for sitting around on New Year’s Eve thinking of all of the things I don’t have. Yes, I understand I have room to grieve and be sad about losing Josh. And maybe even that shouldn’t take up so much space.

Josh always said that he never wanted his parents’ divorce to interfere with his personal success. “I don’t wear my situation
on my sleeve.” He said that to me once, before we were dating. I was a sophomore and he was a junior. He was an RA in my building. We were talking about how some people have the need to explain their personal baggage to anyone who will listen and he wasn’t one of them. He mentioned that his family had problems too, but he never let it affect how he lived or how he built successful relationships. He didn’t use those words, but that’s what he meant. He told this to me in a private conversation and I never heard him talk about his parents’ divorce again until months into our romantic relationship, which was years later. He never let his crappy situation get in his way of being happy. I know for a fact that he would want his son to be the same way.