DREAM

Chris came back and we had sex. “This is different. You’re different. Were you even enjoying yourself?” he asked me. “Yes…sort of. My head is preoccupied with thoughts. You’re here. And my life is different.” I replied. “Would you rather I didn’t come back?” he asked. “Absolutely no. I’d rather you be here. I just have to figure out what that means and looks like in this current life. You’ve been gone for a while.” I replied with these words still in my mouth as I woke from the dream. I laid there, blinking at the ceiling trying to decipher it. I tend to wake from such dreams with various emotions, mostly sadness..some times anger. This time I am filled with sadness and fear. I think about how maybe if he came back it’s him that wouldn’t want to be here with me.

I’m not the person I was when he was here.

There seems to be a growing trend with friends and acquaintances where sometime between forty five and fifty years of age, the male in the relationship decides he doesn’t want to be married anymore. They have up and left to be alone or (most often) to be with another woman. They’ve left marriages that at least from everyone else’s point of view look like perfectly happy marriages. I know at least two women who never saw it coming. They thought all was fine and then Bam! The spouse tells them they’ve been unhappy for years. Years! So there’s a part of me that wonders if Chris would have grown weary with me. I can’t imagine it, but there’s a lot of situations that I couldn’t have imagined that I am now living. I look across the bedroom at a picture of the two of us when we were in Oregon and the look on Chris’s face tells me that he would never, ever leave on his own accord.

But….

There is no What-If game to play here. There is no possibility of “coming back” for Chris. Yet I still have these dreams that hint of the possibility that one day, he’s going to just walk through the front door with the expectation that everything is as it was when he left eleven years ago. So much is so different. The walls are not even the same colors that they were when he left. His office has been taken over by another to be used as a bedroom. Though it is just as cluttered and messy as when it was his office. The dog is different. There’s a cat now too and two humans. It is no wonder I was preoccupied with thoughts because I would have to figure out how to reorganize all of this, how to tell the other people living in the house. I am sure that this is what I was thinking while dreaming. I’ve learned to live without him. I’d have to relearn how to live with him.

“Would you rather I didn’t come back?”

My answer remains the same because I know that when he asks that Chris is not speaking about the physical real world. He is talking about the worlds that exist behind closed eyelids in that space of deep sleep. If this is all I get, then yes, yes, a thousand times yes, don’t ever stop coming back. If I cannot laugh with you on this plane of existence, let me laugh with you in our dreams. Let me kiss and touch you. Let me argue with you and get frustrated with you. Let me be filled with joy as I see your face. If this is the only way, then this is the only way. Next time I promise to not be preoccupied or hesitant. I promise to be fully present in your visit with a full knowledge that they are short and fleeting.

But hopefully, never ending.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Michael and I declared an ‘only stockings’ present year for Christmas and he filled my stocking with ridiculous desk toys. I now own a “Badass” button that tells me how wonderful I am every time I press it and a tiny glowing crystal ball that continuously tells me to '“ask again later.” The Ghostbuster’s trap, I was told, was really more of gift for Chris. So I did the very most Chris thing I could do. I printed out a tiny label with the label maker and gave the trap a name that implies it is a trap for ideas. Good ideas or bad ideas. The trap is an equal opportunity idea catcher.

At the same time I was making the trap label, Amy sent me a picture of a set of books that she would probably have purchased for Chris. It was a series of books of William Shakespeare’s version of Star Wars. She included a shot of dialogue from Scene 1 that included the line “he beepeth on and on.” Michael has a habit of asking me if I know about subject A and then explaining subject A to me even though I said ‘yes, I know about that.’ Now, all I want to do is interrupt him with “Must you, Sir, beepeth on and on?” I am truly surprised that I do not have this set of books already sitting on my bookshelf because while there are many things I got rid of, books were kept. I mean, we should all have our very own copy of Catch 22 stacked next to our bibles (yes, I have a bible, know thine enemy and all that).

I’ve told Michael my theory of soul absorption and how I believe that I have absorbed most of Chris’s soul. It is the reason why he is not surprised when certain phrases fall out of my mouth. He has yet to notice that I sometimes cross my eyes and stare at passengers in the cars stopped next to us at stoplights, not unlike Chris’s goofy-faced alter ego. This was the face he used for Rosco, the hitchhiker Chad picked up during his cross country road trip, the trip that started our friendship with Chad. I have more pictures of this face than I do of Chris’s actual face and I’m not mad about it. We recently started watching Live to 100: Secrets of the Blue Zones and in the very first episode, we listened to a woman who is 102 talk about the importance of laughter, but this is not the first time I have heard such advice. I have experienced it first hand. The amount of laughing Chris and I did is why I never really consider anything I did as ‘grownup’ until I was thirty four and moving us to Kansas City.

The years when I feel I have laughed the least are the years I have felt decrepit and ancient and those are the years I regret the most.

When I started writing this entry, I couldn’t remember the name Chad had given to his imaginary hitchhiker and when I asked him about it, he replied “What made you think of that?” It was so many years ago, so many life changes ago. I told Chad it was because I was writing about Chris’s dumb face, which is true, but it’s really because I’m holding onto joyful moments and reminding myself to be silly. I don’t even need to look at Chris’s goofy face to start grinning; all I have to do is think about it.

I am making it a practice to laugh daily, but I do beepeth on and on.

TIS THE SEASON

To my knowledge, Chris has never been to Iowa. I haven’t ever really been to Iowa, though Michael told me we drove through the state on our way to the Apostle Islands. We drove through while I was sleeping in the back seat because Michael had decided to drive us to Wisconsin in the middle of the night. His idea was that I would sleep while he drove and then we would switch drivers in the morning. His plan mostly worked. I drove us from Duluth to our campsite near Bayfield WI as the sun rose up in the East, with Michael snoring in the passenger seat. Chris was left in Wisconsin on the banks of Lake Superior during that trip. The night before leaving for Heather’s in Des Moines, I realized that Chris had never actually made it to Iowa.

As I pulled his coffee can down from the bookcase, I tried to remember the last time I had taken Chris anywhere. It’s been awhile. Maybe the last time was over a year ago when we visited Vancouver and I left in the hand of laughing sculpture. Our travels of late have all to been to places where Chris and I have already gone. I was in the kitchen, opening the can when Michael and the Cabbage walked in. “What’s that?!” The Cabbage asked as they opened the fridge in search of a snack. Michael answered for me and then there was a brief but frank discussion on human remains. There’s not a whole lot of Chris’s ashes left. Enough left for a few more adventures. Once we made it to Heather’s we sat around the table discussing possible locations to leave Chris. I had looked up some places listed on the Atlas Obscura website. One spot happened to be a cemetery and it was Terry who asked “Have you ever theft Chris in an actual cemetery?”

The Huston Cemetery in Wes Des Moines used to be the center of a roundabout. The intersection has since been remodeled but the tiny cemetery of maybe ten headstones still remain. The last person buried in the space was James B Huston in 1889, the man who founded the settlement. I walked all the way around the cemetery, looking for a good spot to leave Chris. The headstones were all so worn that barely any lettering stood out. I finally settled on a spot close to the tree and in eyesight of an old farmhouse. Really, it was too cold to stand outside debating too long on the perfect place and too cold for tears. There have been a number of times Chris has been left hastily and rushed, mostly because it’s not quite legal. This spot was probably the most legal of all, being it is an actual cemetery.

This is the time of year where everything starts to feel like a scratchy hair coat for those of us who have experienced loss. The memories of our past lives float in to remind of us what it is that we have lost and the Holiday season becomes a mix of pain and joy. Good and bad. Our grief can cause us to lash out in unexpected ways and I am reminded to speak mindfully and tread softly. I am not the only one to have experienced loss. I am not the only one with a ritual for celebrating the life of someone I love. Leaving Chris in all of these different places is a reminder to myself that I do not live in a vacuum. We all have broken or bruised hearts.

This is the time of year for more then ever leading with kindness.

WE ALL HAVE TO GROW UP SOMETIME

Traci contacted me last week to ask if I’d take Quinn’s senior pictures. My immediate response was a mixed bag of being unqualified to take these pictures and internal weeping because how is it possible that this kid is graduating high school?!? I swallowed those feelings and struck a deal with Traci. I would take the pictures for free, edit them and then give them a folder of images to choose and have prints made. She countered the deal with an okay, but we’re going to this fancy ten course dinner place afterwards. We are good at negotiations.

They met me in Tulsa where I had traveled to visit with Mom and we roamed around the Gathering Place while I snapped pictures of Quinn. I took well over three hundred pictures and his eyes were closed in probably two hundred and fifty of them. There was a lot to catch up on since we hadn’t spent time together in almost a year. We swapped life stories while Quinn mugged for the camera. Occasionally, Traci and I would give each other a side eye before making fun of his duck face pose. Yes…duck face is not just for the females and a more experienced portrait photographer would have been able to give this lanky man child better things to do with his face and hands. Even if I was an experienced portrait photographer, I would have been distracted by how it was possible that this human was mostly all grown up.

I have so many stories of this person as a small human. Chris and I were right on the other side of the door to his delivery room and were some of the first people to meet him on his first day on this planet. I have such a clear memory of Traci’s Chris holding this bundled newborn up for us all to witness. Quinn’s head was perfectly rounded and made for those little knitted baby caps. He looked back at us with one squinty eye, like Popeye. Chris was Quinn’s manny from the time he was a tiny baby until we moved to Kansas City. On the Saturday mornings when Chris was working, I’d run errands and then grab breakfast or lunch to take over to Traci’s house. Then Chris and I would watch Quinn poke food into his mouth for over an hour or we’d take him to the Bass Pro Shop to see ‘catfish’. We watched countless hours of Cars and Finding Nemo. We spent every Halloween at their place handing out candy to what felt like thousands of kids or walking the neighborhood trick-or-treating. Tantrums, laughs, snotty noses, I’ve experienced them all.

Traci had made reservations at FarmBar, a place that does a ten course tasting menu, the kind of place I wouldn’t ever think to take a teenager. But Quinn is pretty culinarily adventurous and willing tried each dish that was placed in front of us. There was no need to prod or beg him to just try a bite. The dinner was good, some dishes better than others, but the thing that made this dinner the best was Quinn’s commentary on all of the dishes. If Chris left any kind of imprint on this kid, it was his dry wit and sense of humor. The Kanpachi crudo of shiso ganita and charred onion was described as a “vegetable snow cone” which was not far from the truth. We were five or six courses in before Quinn declared that he hadn’t even used his napkin yet and while waiting on course six, he said “they’re probably back there whipping up one mushroom for the four of us.” And we laughed so dang much.

Quinn has a job and a girlfriend. He’s taking college courses and plans on going to nursing school, like his parents. He’s debating between Japan and Mexico for his senior trip. I told him to pick Japan. He still has that squinty brown eye, though his other eye is hazel. He is taller than all of us. He has Chris’s sense of humor and skill for delivering the perfectly timed, sarcastically dry line.

I bet that skill gets him farther than he can even imagine.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

I am thankful for every time you made me laugh.

I am grateful for the rare times I made you laugh.

I am thankful that I only need one hand to count the number of times we ever really fought.

I am thankful for the ways you challenged me to be better and to work smarter.

I am thankful for the balance, both mentally and emotionally, of our relationship.

I am grateful for all the ways you supported my dreams and ideas.

I am grateful to the value you gave to the words that I spoke.

I am thankful for the moments when we struggled.

I am thankful for the moments when we succeeded together.

I am thankful for all the ‘firsts’ I had with you.

I am grateful for being a witness to your brilliance and wit.

I am grateful for all the photos I have where you are looking at me instead of the camera.

I am thankful for the photos I have of you looking directly at the camera.

I am thankful that I was the one you wanted to spend the rest of your life with.

I am grateful you showed me how a relationship should be.

I am grateful for every moment.

I am thankful that time has not depreciated or diluted my feelings for you and all of the above.

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

Living our lives with more purpose than before.

That was one of the sentences Rebecca Woolf wrote in a posting regarding expectations in widowhood last week. Of all the head nodding relatable things she wrote about society’s judgements on how a widow should behave after the death of her husband, it was that sentence that hit the hardest. Those words were like hands wrapping around my arms to give me a good shake. Living my life with more purpose than I did before Chris’s death is like walking around under a thick heavy blanket. It is exhausting and when it is all I can do to take air into my own lungs, the guilt of not living with more purpose turns that thick heavy blanket into a wet thick heavy blanket.

Now, I know that the people in my immediate circle do not judge or have expectations regarding my widow behavior. I know that those judgment fingers are my own fingers pointing into my own face. No one expects more than I do of myself. After reading Rebecca’s post, I sent a message to her that read “‘Living our lives with more purpose than before’ is so fucking exhausting.” It wasn’t until I had written it out that I realized the weight of what I have been carrying around with me all this time. No wonder I’m tired all the dang time. It is hard enough on most days to live a life of purpose for myself, let alone live a life of purpose for myself and another human. I had a hard time separating the me from the me and Chris. So much of my life after Chris is tinged with guilt because I went from being a person who didn’t care what others thought of me to a person who suddenly cared what a dead man thought of me. It has taken me almost ten years to figure out that who I am without Chris is the same person I was with Chris, with just a few minor adjustments.

This week, I removed my set of wedding rings from the chain I wear around my neck, leaving Chris’s wedding band and my scooter charm. I remember clearly when I added my rings to the chain with Chris’s ring. I took them off my finger because I had lost enough weight to make them loose on my ring finger. Dangerously loose. I remember riding the scooter home from work and feeling them slip from the largest knuckle. At the time, it made perfect sense to add them to Chris’s ring. I really didn’t know what else to do with my wedding rings, but I really didn’t know what to do with myself. As I lifted my chain to place it around my neck, I was astounded by how noticeably lighter that chain felt without my rings and later in the day, when I caught a reflection of myself with only Chris’s ring and my scooter charm on that chain, my hand flew to my neck in a moment of panic. For a very brief moment, I thought “there is no me without him.” Then the thumb of my hand that had flown up to my neck, looped Chris’s wedding band onto itself. I spun that ring around my thumb, feeling the soothing coolness and remembered how light I felt by taking my rings off. The moment of panic slipped easily away because I realized that the truth is, there is no him without me.

The Cabbage recently broached the subject of death and afterlife. I mentioned The Law of Conservation of Energy.

The law of conservation of energy states that energy can neither be created nor destroyed - only converted from one form of energy to another.

Chris’s energy is everywhere and nowhere. I feel it when I’m writing and creating. I feel it when I watch any movie or hear new music from one of our favorite bands. He’s holding the pen every time I sit down to make a list of any kind. I feel it when I see something that I know we would both laugh forever about. It is his voice saying that sharp witted subtle thing that makes someone else in the room laugh. I will never let go of Chris or his wedding band. I will always be married to him, but I am ready to let go of living this life for him. I am ready to drop these expectations I have of myself, the ones that whisper “I am not enough.”

I want to have some not so great expectations for living.

BLASTERS

I recently had to explain the above picture to some new friends. The Cabbage pointed it out to everyone in the room and I found myself saying “that’s my late husband with a Stormtrooper.” This was not an acceptable answer for the Cabbage who replied “but why that picture?” I went with the simplest answer. I went with that picture because it’s funny. We were at the Medieval Fair in Norman and Stormtroopers appearing in Medieval times is nerdy genius. The more elaborate answer as to why that picture is that it is a capture of pure authentic joy. It is one of the few pictures I have of Chris where he is not making a face at the camera and it is a picture of Chris with something Star Wars, his favorite thing.

Most every single picture I own of the two of us, in everyone of them Chris is not looking at the camera. He is always looking at me.

There is a gap forming between when Chris died and now. I was scrolling through pictures, looking for something in particular, and I noticed that there are hundreds of photos in my storage that I must scroll through to get to the Chris years. It makes me think of the end of Titanic where they just show a bunch of photographs of Rose doing stuff and living life. The only difference is that I know Chris would have fit on that door with me floating in the Atlantic and I would made sure that he was on it with me. We both probably would have lost our feet to frostbite, but we’d still be alive. Chris dragged me to the theater four times to watch that movie. The first viewing was great, but by the fourth viewing, I was fed up with Rose and her wide-eyed, insipid, innocence and I still did not understand why it was that both of them could not fit on that giant door. Chris fell off into the ocean anyway and I went on to live a life and every day I feel that tether linking us get longer and longer. I worry that my rope isn’t long enough. I’m going to run out of length and stretch the line until it thins and breaks. Some time back, Michael mentioned that I might stop wearing my wedding rings after a certain amount of time. Like, if Michael and I are together for as long as Chris and I were, then maybe I could stop wearing them. I remember vaguely nodding my head without comment. The truth is that I don’t ever see me not wearing these wedding rings around my neck. They’re part of the tether. The weight of them resting just above my heart is what helps to keep that tether from fraying.

For Star Wars Day, my friend Jeff sent me a link to a trivia game based on all things Star Wars. It reminded me of all the times we played Star Wars Trivial Pursuit and how my answer to every question was “R2D2”. Meanwhile Chris would know random ships by their number. The game always came down to Chris and Jen with one of them winning or maybe tying. I did not beat Jeff’s trivia score. Too many questions about lightsaber colors and ship numbers, all the questions Chris would have the answers to. None of the answers were R2D2. None of the answers are ever really R2D2.

It is days like these that close the gap of the in between years.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Talaura sent me a message saying “I think Chris would have pivoted from writing to podcasts.” and I instantly heard Chris’s voice in my head. This is significant because the sound of his voice has eluded me for years. I see Chris all the time, but he never speaks. The result is that I can’t remember the sound of his voice. I don’t have any recordings or outgoing messages to play over and over to remind me. That’s probably a good thing because how many times can you stab your own self, but still his voice is something I have missed. After all, it was his stage presence and voice that first attracted me. The moment he stepped out onto the stage in Much Ado About Nothing, I sat up in my chair and took notice. I thought “this guy is more than meets the eye and someone to pay attention too.” In that moment, I decided to put myself into is orbit. I did everything to make myself noticeable to him. I even changed desks in a class we had together so that I was sitting closer to him.

Chris was a man of few words, but those words were always significant. While he was the one making us all laugh with those few words, it was not as easy to make him bust out in laughter. You might get a chuckle. On those occasions where I made him laugh, really really laugh, it was like winning a goddamn prize. When I realized that I could no longer recall the sound of his laughter or his voice, it was like realizing I had lost my own hearing. I had grown resigned to the idea that this was something that would be gone forever, just another symptom of death. That simple one sentence of text flipped a switch inside my brain and suddenly there was Chris talking about Star Wars and laughing with his guest podcaster. It is a given that Chris’s podcasts would be SciFy related, but part of me also thinks he would do one on things that don’t really go together. Like nuts and gum or hotdog straws. I am sure he would have a lot to say about the xenophobia and racism plaguing this country, particularly because he would be a target for some of that xenophobia and racism.

You would think that all of this would make me feel sad, but quite the opposite has happened. I am filled with joy. It is like finding that favorite earring you lost ages ago but it was under the dresser the whole time. I am grateful that Talaura was able to help me move that dresser to find that earring.

THINGS AND STUFF

Yesterday, I had my hairdresser cut all of my hair off really short. It is so short that I have a tiny bit of remorse when I look in the mirror. I have looked at my reflection and thought “Cindy, maybe that’s too short.” Then I shrug and tell myself my hair will grow. Give it a week and it won’t look so short. After our haircuts, I made Michael drive me to Ulta and I bought some temporary silver hair dye, but I didn’t have any disposable gloves in the house. I have to wait until I can snag some gloves. That is okay because even though deep down I know that silver dye on my non-bleached hair is going to make little difference in the color, I am still a little nervous about my hair turning out really silver.

That is not going to happen.

Maybe, deep down, I want something shocking and drastic.

March fifteenth, 2021 marks ten years working in my current place of employment. I feel like that is a milestone. In my line of works, labs are shutting down and laying off all the time. Research scientist is not as stable a position as some would think. Funding for science is highly competitive and that funding can make or break a lab. So ten years in one spot feels important. It is also coincides with Chris and I’s wedding anniversary. I had to do the math for this one, but it would have been twenty three years. This feels like a lot of years and not a lot of years all at the same time. That is probably because in reality we only got fourteen years when we should have had a whole lot more years. Often, it feels like I was jilted.

I am a glass jar filled with numbers, all of which are significant.

I wonder if my photography would have improved to this current level if Chris was still around. I wonder if I would still be writing this blog of Chris were still here. I wonder if I would care about either of those things. Every time I set up for Zoom yoga, I think about how Chris would have geeked out and purchased professional lighting and a real microphone. I wonder if we would have a cat or if Hooper would still be us. I wonder if Chris would have finished some substantial piece of writing by now. I am filled with questions about what we would look like today.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Delicate wishes

This is what I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. Well…it isn’t the only thing I’ve been thinking about, but it has been taking up a lot of brain space this week for some reason. I’ve been thinking about what this pandemic would look like if Chris were here. I talked to Dr. Mary about this on Tuesday. I talked to Dr. Mary about a lot of things on Tuesday. I only see her once a month now. So the minute I sit down in her office, I just start babbling. It feels more like I do a lot of complaining and after I finish whining about something, I try to end it with something positive like “at least I still have a job.” Because that’s no joke. I complained a lot before I got to Chris and imagining an alternate reality.

The thing I miss the most at this moment is his sense of humor. Good God, I miss the way we would just laugh. He had a way of taking those dark serious parts of life and turning them into something we could laugh about. Not in an irreverent way. Okay…sometimes in an irreverent way, but we knew when to be respectful. Mostly. I have spent this week desperately curious about his take on our current events. I miss the sharp razor blades of his wit and I miss his silly antics. You know his face mask would look re-damn-diculous. I came across that picture of him in Chad’s jeep the other day. His face all dorky and hair messed up as he played the part of Rosco the Hitchhiker. Imagine that face wearing a face mask. He could make me laugh like no one else and he saw the value in the need for laughter.

The value in the need for laughter.

Life is a struggle. At times it is a grueling slog. We are living in a dumpster fire right now. I have friends who have lost jobs and have had to make some really difficult decisions. Science has been politicized in such a way that it has put peoples lives in danger. POC are still being murdered by police. STILL. It feels like we’re on a hike that went horribly wrong and have ended up trudging through a swamp up hill with only one good hiking boot. We’ve run out of water and snacks. The compass broke, it’s raining and we are being swarmed by mosquitoes. I one hundred percent guarantee you that Chris would have us in stitches with a running gag about that one boot and that broken compass. Of course this world needs more empathy, more compassion, more understanding of otherness. Of course we need those things. But we also need laughter. If Chris taught me anything, he taught me this.

To tell you the honest truth, I don’t even know if all of this would be happening if Chris were still with us. I still believe that his death altered our timeline significantly. One thing is for sure though, he would still be making us laugh.

DAY 3: STING, FIELDS OF GOLD

I was almost twenty years old when I finally lost my virginity. ‘Lost’ is a funny way to phrase that. Gave away, willingly let go of, out grew, donated. Let’s go with willingly and enthusiastically let go of my virginity. Letting go of my virginity in the back of a car with some high school boy just wasn’t an option for me. I was not desirable to high school boys. Mom brought some of my senior year pictures on her last visit. Michael was looking through them and said “Oh…you’d have been in trouble if we’d gone to the same school. I’d be all over this.” I just quietly nodded my head, but what I wanted to say was “not true.” I knew guys like him in high school and they’d be interested for about two minutes until I opened my mouth and said something truthful and honest. So while all my high school girlfriends were having sex or had had sex, I was reading books about sex.

And promoting condom use.

Then in college, I met Chris. Five years older and experienced. He’d lived a life before committing to college. And he was not enthused about being my first sexual partner. Virgins are work. There’s all these preconceived notions of what that first time will be like. Will it hurt? Will I get pregnant? Should it be super special with roses and candles and a fancy hotel room? Chris was unwilling to cause me any pain. So I willingly gave away my virginity in stages until one day, it just happened. In every one of those stages, Sting’s Fields of Gold was playing in the background. I hear any song from that album and I’m immediately transported to Chris’s dorm room. We’re laying on his twin bed, made up with his original Star Wars sheets The room is dark with just the tiniest amount of light peeking in through the window blinds. Sometimes we’re talking. Sometimes we’re silent. Sometimes we’re even laughing. That album would be playing the first time we said “I love you” to each other.

I remember one evening around the fire pit at Misti’s old house. Losing virginity stories were going around the campfire. When I told my story everyone just sort of shook their heads and Misti said something like “well done, Chris.” I recognize that my first time was not a typical first time experience for most women. I recognize that the relationship I had in general with Chris was not typical. Fortunate. I have been fortunate.

I never made promises lightly and there have been some that I've broken
But I swear in the days still left we'll walk in fields of gold
We'll walk in fields of gold

For a while, not long enough, but for longer than I should hope for, we walked in fields of gold.

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Alien

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Chris blindly reached his hand over to grab his favorite pen, except the pen was not there. Chris felt certain he’d left that pen there on the side table. He continued to blindly pat around on the table, searching for his pen. Finally he got up and looked over the top of the side table. He picked up his books and papers that he had stacked there. Still, Chris did not see his pen. He frowned as he set the books and papers back onto the side table and scratched his head. He was almost certain that was the last place he saw that pen. Maybe it rolled off the table, Chris thought. So, he got down on his hands and knees and started rummaging around on the floor, looking under the table and that corner of the couch. He was really starting to frustrated when Cindy walked into the living room. “What are you doing?” she asked. Her question startled Chris enough to make him jump and then bump his head on the bottom of the couch. Chris replied through gritted teeth “I’m looking for my favorite pen.” Cindy tilted her head to one side and said “which one?” Chris sighed heavily, “You know. The metal one with the orange ring around the top. I know I left it on this table, but it’s not here.” Cindy walked over to the coffee table and picked up one of Chris’s journals. She opened the journal and extracted Chris’s favorite pen. “This one?” she said as she held the pen up. Chris smiled and reached to take the pen from her hand. “Yes! That one!”

It’s a story I wrote on Saturday, in the Fortune Cookie journal. The prompt had something to do with writing your hearts desires or dreams or something like that. It’s the first time since I’ve started writing in that journal where I used Chris and I as characters. The story is fiction, but could have easily been something that really happened. You did not have to know Chris long to know he had a thing for pens. And journals. I have a superpower that I mostly never mention and that’s an ability to just know where stuff is. This is why it was so weird that I couldn’t find my scooter key after Chris died. I might not know exactly where everything is, but I can usually give you three locations of possibility and whatever it is you’re looking for is guaranteed to be in one of those three spots. I’m not saying that I can do this all the time, but it happens just often enough for some people really close to me to notice my abilities.

It’s quite possible that I only thought I was writing a fictitious story about a moment in the day and life of Chris and Cindy. That’s the thing about these memories. As time passes, the memories start to feel like dreams or wishes. No one here got a chance to really know Chris or even meet him. When I talk about my life before, the life when Chris was still alive, it sounds like I’m talking about a pretend life. Sometimes I feel like Christopher Robin explaining to a grown up about the existence of his best friend, Winnie the Pooh. Chris is some imaginary person. If only I could just walk down the street to Madame Foster’s and hang out with him. Oh, the shenanigans we’d get into or the movies we’d watch. You know what’s dumb? If that was at all possible, that is exactly what we’d end up doing. All those questions I have for him? I’d completely forget to ask any of them. The answers wouldn’t matter anymore.

I’ve been working hard at being present in this current life. When I find myself in a small-talk kind of conversation with a stranger and they ask me how long I’ve lived in Kansas City, I’ve started saying that I moved here about seven years ago (or is it eight?). I don’t say “My late husband and I moved here about seven years ago.” I’ve stopped including Chris in my story of the move to Kansas City. I don’t know why. Maybe because it’s just easier, less confusing. Leaving him out of it ensures that I will not get that look of sympathy that usually makes me cringe and I don’t have to answer any follow up questions regarding how he died or what life is like as a widow. I don’t have to explain anything. For a moment I can pretend to be someone else, someone without a sad backstory. Only for a moment. Eventually I slip up and say something about a late husband.

I’d make a terrible undercover agent.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

So, I says to Mabel. I said...

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In the very early morning hours on Thursday, well before my alarm went off, I had a dream. Chris was in this dream. He just showed up and he was alive and well. The two of us were in Portland at one of their food truck halls. Someone placed a crepe with ice cream and fruit down on the table in front of us. I looked at Chris and asked “Did you order this?” He shook his head and replied “Nope.” So we looked around and noticed the people at the crepe place were waiving at us. They had sent it over to us for free. We smiled and waived back then dug into the crepe and we were talking and laughing as usual. Then I said “Wait. How is it that you are here?” Chris shrugged and said “I don’t know. I’m just here.” I nodded my head and said “That’s cool.” We took a few more bites from our crepe and then I said “Oh my gosh! We totally forgot to tell Todd that we were in Portland. I’ll text him and tell him to come meet us.” Chris said “Okay.” and then left to find the bathroom. Todd showed up while Chris was in the bathroom, so I said to Todd “Okay, listen. This is going to sound really weird, but Chris is here. He’s alive and everything and we sat here and ate on this crepe. He’s in the bathroom now, but I’m serious. Chris is really hear.” Except Chris never came back from the bathroom. So I was left trying to convince Todd that I had not completely lost my mind.

By the time I woke up, Todd still was not convinced that I hadn’t gone totally mental. Usually when I have dreams that involve Chris, I wake up crying or angry or both. This time I just woke up. I did want to text Todd and tell him “no I’m not crazy; Chris was here.” I refrained because I know that you should never send a text or email that obviously proves you are crazy. That way it can not be used against you later. Like in a court of law or something. This dream did not leave me feeling sad. Actually it was probably the best dream involving Chris that I have had since he died. I don’t remember what he said or if he actually really did say something, but it felt like he was talking and we were chatting about just regular stuff. Chris has never just chatted with me about regular stuff when I dream of him. He pretty much says nothing at all and the dreams are not pleasant. I also did not walk away from this dream and spend the rest of the day clouded in sadness. Though I did harbor a craving for crepes with some ice cream and fruit for the rest of the day.

On March 14, 1998 Chris and I said “I do” in front of my parents, Stephanie and a couple we knew from college. The ceremony took place at the Chapel of Love in Las Vegas. That was twenty one years ago. I like to think we had a good run while it lasted. Sure, his hoarding tendencies drove my insane and I could get really frustrated with his lack of action. I tried to be more understanding with the later because I know that most of his inaction was due to self esteem issues. We are our own worst critics. But for the most part, we listened to each other and were equally matched intellectually. We spoke the same language and felt comfortable saying what we meant to each other. Our marriage was such a stark contrast to the marriage I was exposed to growing up. It almost didn’t seem like we were married so much as we were best friends who happened to have sex with each other and lived together. So, I guess I’m glad I let Chris talk me into getting married.

I do miss him.

I’m not crazy. Chris was here.

ALWAYS SOMETHING THERE

7/52 Project Zen

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It’s happened twice now. Michael and I will be in bed, either starting or in the middle of sex and a song will start playing that reminds me of Chris. It was that Mumford and Son’s song that hit first, the one that Chris used to sing like a muppet. I closed my eyes and willed the memory of his ridiculous muppet impression to go away. Not forever. Just for that moment. The next one was the Flaming Lips’ Do You Realize, which is one of the songs we played at Chris’s service. It was a little more difficult to will those memories away. In both instances, I feel like I deserve a God Damn Oscar for my performance. Also, crying while having sex is never a reassuring thing for your partner. I don’t tell any of this to Michael or talk about it or mention it. The man already refers to himself as second Darin, even though he’s nothing like the first Darin. Besides, Michael has his own demons to fight with. I try to be respectful of this and not add to his discomfort. I am not so much bothered by Chris’s presence in the bedroom as Michael would be. Michael is just more conservative when it comes to sex. I figure Chris is enjoying the peep show.

Sometimes it feels like I am in two relationships. One with Michael and one with a dead guy.

I made it through the first ten days of February without having a complete meltdown. I told Dr. Mary on Tuesday that I feel like I am working really hard at tuning out the memories of the bad part of Chris’s final days. I’m choosing to send that focus to the good memories. I told her about teaching my yoga class to one student last week, on what would have been Chris’s 48th birthday. It would have been so easy for me to cancel my class that evening and spend my night sulking on the couch. Instead, I pulled myself together and went to teach one of the best classes and I continued to keep myself busy and moving. I subbed a yoga class on Saturday. I went grocery shopping and managed to get those groceries into the house. Our front yard has been a literal ice rink since Thursday. On a slope. Every morning, getting to our vehicles looks like every YouTube video you have seen of people slipping and sliding on ice. I parked my car last night at the top of the drive, put it in park and set the emergency brake. My car slid backwards down the drive six inches. Michael was in the process of parking his truck behind me. I did not hit him. This time.

These nudges or hauntings from Chris sometimes make me wonder if he thinks I’m forgetting him. As if he’s still a conscious being or trapped in a closet somewhere. It would kind of be great, but also super complicated, if he ended up just being trapped in a closet somewhere. Chris and I were married for fourteen years. He has now been gone for seven years. Half the amount of time we were married. I am not forgetting him. I still talk to the jerk every single day and he still says nothing in return. I am just finding better, healthier ways of coping with the fact that he’s never going to say anything in return. Last night, I got in my car to head home. I started the engine and the first sound to greet me was the opening theme to Star Wars blaring from the radio. Starting right from the beginning note. The Bridge let the song play for a good two minutes before the DJ broke in to announce their Oscars Episode. I almost muttered “leave me alone” but then I shook my head.

At least I was in my car and not naked in bed with another man.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Sirsasana

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Freezing mist and drizzle set in around here on Wednesday. Schools closed early and stayed closed through Thursday. The Y has a no close policy. They stay open for people who need to be someplace warm. This meant that the yoga class I teach on Wednesday evenings would not be cancelled unless I called it in. I cancelled my class the week before because of work and weather. I did not feel like I could get away with this two Wednesdays in a row. So, I bundled up and with warnings from Michael to drive very very safely, I went to teach my Wednesday night yoga class.

I arrived early and when I went to lay out my mat and set up my things, one of the Y trainers was set up in that space with one of his clients. I chatted with the trainer about yoga. I did a few rounds of surya namaskar. I reviewed my notes for the class I had prepared for the evening and I eyed the clock. I was starting to think that no one was going to show up for class. A minute before my class was supposed to start, a woman came rushing in and said “Oh My GOD! I’m so glad you’re here.” She turned out to be my only student for the evening and it was probably the best class I’ve taught in a while. I was able to take the class I had planned and tweak it specifically for her needs. We flowed through a series of poses and then did a few exercises to prepare for headstand. She mentioned having problems with tightness in her shoulders and I showed her a few exercises she could do at home relieve some of that tension. When the class ended, the woman expressed her gratitude to me several times. She thanked me for staying and teaching the class even though she was my only student. She thanked me for class and the work we had done together in this practice. She thanked me for how good her body felt after the practice. She was so grateful.

This gratitude, of course, made me feel good but what I did not express to her was how grateful I was for her being present in our class that evening. For one thing, I was grateful to be able to share my practice and knowledge to this woman in a way that will help her beyond the yoga mat. At the same time, being able to give the gift of easing one’s physical pain is a soothing balm for my soul. Wednesday would have been Chris’s 48th birthday and I spent the day with this knowledge ping ponging it’s way around my brain. I remember that he was in good spirits for that last one. We’d had friends visiting and there had been laughter. Always laughter. Then Chris immediately started to decline. He went from being able to communicate effectively to making absolutely no sense in one day. The worst of it though, was the pain. Chris was in so much pain and there was nothing I could do to ease it. I could give him pills that would barely manage his pain, but managing pain is not the same as being pain free.

It was horrifying to have to watch him suffer and debilitating to not have any control over the amount of his suffering.

I did not do anything monumental for this woman. I simply helped her to ease tension in her shoulders so she would sleep better that night. There are things within my control and abilities and there are things that are not. Controlling Chris’s pain was not in my control or abilities. At one point while working on headstand, the women said “this is hard! and it shows me that I lack strength.” I said to her “You have the strength to do the things you need to do. No where in our daily lives do we need to do headstands. Sure, it’s fun and feels empowering to be able to do these kinds of poses, but don’t forget that you are strong in other ways.” I did not realize at the time that I was saying those words to myself.

I have the strength to do the things I need to do. I am strong in other ways.

THANKFUL FRIDAY

Stormy weather

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I left work on my scooter Tuesday and headed to Dr. Mary's for our usual Tuesday evening session and ended up driving right into a storm. To the east, the sky was blue and bright, but to the west it was all menacing rumbling clouds. And I headed right into it. I watched lightening flash and I could hear the thunder but it was still far enough west that I made it to Dr. Mary's before the rain hit. I had to take my helmet in with me because there wasn't room for it the seat and I knew it was going to pour any minute. In the time it took me to get through the office building and into Dr. Mary's office, the sky had turned black. Dr. Mary smiled when she saw me and then frowned when she saw my helmet. "Oh, Cindy." I just nodded and replied "yup." Then I waved it all off. I told her that this would totally blow over and be gone by the end of our session.

The storm blew in hard. We looked out the window at the rain coming down sideways and lightening striking here and there. Then we settled in for our session. We talked...or at least I talked for forty five minutes and as our time was coming to an end, Dr Mary looked up and out the window. "Look! It has blown over!" It was still gray and the streets were soaked, but the storm had passed. It was no longer raining. She still made me promise to call her when I got home so she knew I was safe. I made it home mostly dry, without incident. When I got home, Michael just shook his head. He doesn't know how I manage to ride between rain drops or narrowly manage to avoid disaster. That storm took down trees and power all over the city. Debris still littered the streets the next day as I rode to work. 

I scrolled deep into Chris's Facebook page this week. While I should have been reading papers on ZIKA and embryonic development, I was waisting time skimming through all of his stuff. I wanted to go way back to before our move, before he got sick. I wanted Chris. I wanted to poke my skin with needles and feel the satisfaction of watching the little drops of blood rise up. I scrolled down and down, skimming the page and laughing out loud at more then half of the stuff I ended up reading. Good God, he was funny. And smart. His wit was so sharp at times. I made it all the way back to December 2010 and that's when I saw it. 

 "Ugh. Need a CAT scan next week to check for stones. I hope they use that Keyboard Cat because he's awesome!"

That slip of paper I had found in Chris's office after he died, the one requesting a CAT scan, now has an answer. It was a CAT scan for possible kidney stones and they ended up cancelling it because he passed the stone. He didn't know about the tumor on his liver. My whole body buckled with relief before my brain had time to kick in with the what ifs of him having had that CAT scan then.

I ride into storms. The whole time I'm thinking that it won't hit before I reach my destination or I'll out run it. What's a little lightening and thunder? A bit of electricity and the sound of expanding, rapidly heated air? It's nothing. I am reminded of a song by Thao Nguyen and the Get Down Stay Down, Swimming pools.

"We, we brave beestings and all. We don't dive, we cannonball. We splash our eyes full of chemicals. Just so there's none left for little girls."

When given the opportunity, I tend to always cannonball. I know to calm myself and move gently around a bee, but I still ride right into thunder storms. I don't do it because I'm brave or fearless or reckless. Okay...maybe I am little bit reckless. Mostly, though, I ride into storms because I know they're going to blow over. 

I am thankful for the moments of peace and calm between those storms. 

THINGS I'VE TAKEN CARE OF

Te Ata

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Some times, as I make that long drive from Oklahoma City to KCMO, I start sobbing. I say some times because really I only do this when I've made the trip alone. It's just too many hours of endless road time trapped with my own thoughts. I know that I could listen to books or podcasts, but my brain still wanders off. I start crying. I cry about how much has changed. I cry about how much has not changed. I cry about how I never feel like I spend enough time or see all of the people. I cry because I feel guilty for not making enough of an effort to see all of the people. I cry because I'm tired and probably slightly hungover. I cry because I've stretched myself too thin. I cry because Chris isn't with me. 

Old life. New life.

I spent a weekend visiting friends in OK recently. I drove all the way down to Chickasha first, helping Misti with the finishing touches for the Listen Local event at our college and meeting Amy for dinner. The trees on the oval are now towering beauties. Buildings that were once closed are now open. I don't recognize any of the professors in the biology department. I ran into my old chemistry professor by chance and he told me he had retired. He new me instantly, told me I still look the same. Maybe that's what happens when you step back onto the campus. You morph back into the person you were then. I certainly saw everything as it was then. Same sidewalk Chris and I walked  a billion and one steps on as we traveled back and forth between dorm rooms. I spent most of that weekend with friends I would not have had if it hadn't been for Chris. Friends that Chris made into our family. He's the glue. I've noticed places where that glue has started to weaken and I feel responsible, like I need to reenforce those weak spots. I could be better at that some how. 

I am a filer. I talk about getting things organized, but I already have things organized. I just feel they could be organized better. My photos fall into the need better organization group, but if you ask me for the instruction manual to the fridge I can pull that right out of the filing cabinet for you. I like to compartmentalize shit. I don't just do this with the tangible. My life before Chris, my life with Chris, my life after Chris...these all have their own shoebox stacked inside my brain. Things happen, like earthquakes or bicycle wrecks, and boxes get jumbled and messed up. That shit spills out. [Off topic but speaking of earthquakes. I either had an encounter with a poltergeist or an earthquake while I was sleeping over at the Jens.] Some times the things I put into boxes do not stay in their boxes. Compartmentalization is hard. Thus the sobbing.

I came across an envelope containing Chris's driver's license and a death certificate as I was cleaning out the mail catcher on my desk. They were gathered in one place with the intention of fixing his Facebook account. A year went by. Then another. Time passing. I picked up that envelope and thought maybe I should finally do something about that. So I did. Chris's Facebook page is now a memorial page. This is me, trying to reenforce some weak places. 

THE OCCASIONAL PUNCH TO THE GUT

Ghost

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I came home from work to find the picture sitting on my home desk. Blurred and faded. Chris in the act of impersonating a jelly fish or reenacting a scene from the Simpsons. It could be either of those things. I recognize the room. It is the room where we all spent half our days hanging out, the student government office in Trout Hall. Is it even still called Trout Hall? For some reason I don't think so. I vaguely remember them moving the student government office too after we all graduated. God, this image is from a hazy lifetime ago, back when we were all so young and not so jaded by life's disappointments. That school was our Hogwarts. I don't think any of us even thought about what we'd do next, when we finally graduated and had to leave. 

I think we were all surprised and a little shell shocked when we realized that we would one day leave that place to stumble through to the next thing. Some times I wonder and dream about what it would have looked like to never leave. Not necessarily staying on as students, but moving into teaching. The only time teaching has ever crossed my mind was if I could teach there. I have no desire to do it otherwise. I wonder what we would look like, how the group of us would have changed if we had all stayed put. Would we just be older versions of our idyllic selves? Chris and Amy would have turned the UFO Independent Study into a yearly event. I would have taken over Dr. MaGrath's campus gardening project. Jen would be dragging a group of art students around to various places to sit and draw. Basically we would be the lost boys to Chris's Peter Pan. Never growing up.

Was I his Wendy?

I remember how it felt like we were not grown ups. Not even when we moved on from graduate school and entered the so called 'real world'. We still seemed to be just playing at adulthood. Like it was a game or a theater production. We watched cartoons and collected toys. We had hand-me-down everything from cars to couches. We still scavenged home decor from thrift stores and garbage dumpsters. The idea of being able to buy a house was so far out there that we thought it would be easier to buy land on the moon. We bought scooters and lived with his mom. We were children right up until the day we moved to Kansas City. We moved in an actual moving van for the first time, not a horse trailer borrowed from a neighbor. We bought a lawnmower and we bought a house. Our couch was still a hand-me-down couch and our furniture was still an eclectic mix of thrift store and IKEA, but it was our house with a garage and a fenced-in backyard. 

We were better off never growing up. 

The Cabbage was the one to find that picture. It had been tucked inside a book and had fallen free when she pulled the book from the shelf. There is always an odd tug and pull that I feel whenever my current life runs into my past life. Michael and the Cabbage are always respectful of my past. They placed that picture on my desk instead of back in the book it fell out of because they thought I might want it. Which was nice and sweet. But it still feels odd for them to run across such a random and totally honest picture of Chris. Like a science fiction show when dimensions in timelines cross paths. For a moment my timeline gets twisted into a loop and the now meets up with the then ever so briefly. Just enough to feel the oddness of it before it flips back into place. Like a twisting rubber band. 

We are better off never growing up. 

FORTY SEVEN

Instagram post by Cindy Maddera * Feb 6, 2018 at 2:39pm UTC

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Chris turned forty one and then died one hundred and three hours later. This is the first thing I remember when I wake up on February sixth. It is the beginning of the losing. If this were a normal day and there were no such things as tumors or cancers, Chris would be turning forty seven, but this isn't fantasy land. Tumors happen. Cancer has been a thing since the dawn of man. No one lives forever. I can't even image what we would be doing to celebrate his birthday this year. Movie? Dinner? Maybe have Amy, Roger and Charolette up for the weekend? Traci, Chris and Quinn? Maybe we'd go there? I don't know. The only birthday of Chris's that we celebrated after our move to KCMO was the one before he died. It had only been a year since our move. 

One year. 

2011 was a year of great change. 2012 was the black hole that sucked up all of that greatness.

I keep thinking that there really is going to be a day when I don't dwell on this day. Facebook reminded me to share a Thankful Friday post from February sixth where I wrote about being thankful for the time Chris and I had. I read through it and rolled my eyes. What a load of sugar coated bullshit. Of course I am grateful for that time, but come on. I'm the Pollyanna of grief. Oh look at me! The person I expected to grow old with died before we were old, but I'm doing so great! Sometimes I think this attitude I have where I try to show everyone (mostly myself) that I'm doing just fine, diminishes Chris and what we had. I mean, if it was all so great, how is it that I've been able to move forward so quickly. What I don't always tell you or anybody is just how much I have to work at staying in forward motion. 

Do you watch This is Us? I don't know why Michael and I watch it. It makes us both cry every damn episode. The latest episode was the hardest for me but at the same time, a little validating. Twenty years later and each family member is still grieving. Each member of the family spends the anniversary of their Dad's/Husband's death dealing with it in their own way. Mom makes lasagna. Kate watches a home movie. Randall goes all out for the Super Bowl, Dad's favorite thing. Kevin...usually does nothing, but that changed this year. We see him start his own tradition. I feel like each of those characters represent my years of grief. I made everything jambalaya the first year. I got lost in all of our old photos. I haven't gone all out for anything or started a new tradition. Those are for years to come I guess. 

I have removed 90% of his junk from this house. Mostly garbage. Some toys. All of his clothes with the exception of a T-shirt that I still wear and his old bath robe. I still wear that too because it's big and soft and he didn't really wear it but once or twice. I never got around to fixing his Facebook account. It requires a photo ID and I've put all of that stuff someplace so organized that I don't remember where. Also it's for selfish reasons. The daily onslaught of messages to his timeline is too much for me. So I've let it slide. I'll fix it eventually. I owe it to the others who loved him. Just not today. Today I am too busy being split in two between the life I had and the life I have. 

WHAT EVER HAPPENED TO...

Green KCMO

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It was when the woman made eye contact with me that I realized I had been staring. She was sitting in a group of four at table by the window, just diagonally from where I also sat with a group of four. I lifted my menu up and looked away, but I continued to glance over at her while trying to stay focused on the conversation happening around me. It's just that she looked just like my college roommate, Jenese. I was too timid to go over and say anything because the woman looked just like Jenese from 1998 and I guess it's possible that she hasn't aged, but I would have expected some aging. I sent Amy a text telling her that I just saw a woman that looked exactly like Jenese from 1998. She replied that maybe it was her and I should have asked. Stranger things have happened.

Then I got to wondering about what ever happened to Jenese. A quick Google search brought up nothing. No Facebook. No Instagram. No twitter. I felt bad about not staying in touch. Jenese and I were paired up into a room of four girls our freshman year at USAO. By the end of the first semester, one of those girls had dropped out. By the end of the second semester, Jenese and I were the only two left in that room. Eventually I would get my own room when I became a resident assistant and Jenese would move into a single dorm room, but we remained friends. I guess I stopped noticing her presence when Amy, Chris and I moved out of the dorms our senior year, but I could have sworn that she was at many of our breakfast night feasts. The more I looked for her online, the more it bothered me that I had let myself fall out of touch with her. What was she doing now? Is she teaching? Did she get married? I bet she's a mom. Jenese was mom material. Did she still live in Oklahoma? 

Then I wondered if she knew about Chris. She had been there when Chris and I started dating. She had witnessed it all really, just like all the others in our group. Did she know that Chris is no longer with us? I think about these things on occasion. I wonder if people we've lost touch with know about Chris, people like Jensese. Even Melody, the woman who owns the coffee shop we loved in OKC. We sent her a Christmas card every year and she'd put it up on cork board above the sugar and cream counter. Did she know about Chris? I can imagine scenarios where I run into these people and they ask "Where's Chris?!" and I have to say "Oh, he's dead." Then I have to watch the look of shock and confusion on their faces as they try to make sense of what I just said. Sometimes the person I'm having the imaginary conversation with even cocks their head to one side like a confused puppy. "Did you just say, 'he's dead'?!?" Yeah...yeah, I did. 

Any way, Jenese if you're out there some where reading this, email me! We should catch up!