One of my favorite tv shows is a fun, whimsical confection called Younger. In it, the main character must return to the workforce after her husband of twenty years leaves her for another woman. Liza is both smart and Ivy-league educated, but when her lack of work history deems her unemployable she does what any character on a well-written tv show would do. She pretends to be a 25 year old recent college grad and gets her dream job in publishing. Liza's best friend at the publishing house is a 20 something year old whose fiance is killed in a freak accident. Upon his death, Kelsey does what any tv sitcom character would do. She wears trendy black outfits for a couple of episodes to remind us that she's in mourning, and within a few weeks is back on the dating scene, being "tram-slammed" by a handsome stranger with whom she realizes she has no future.
I love this show. It's a fun, light-weight fantasy and like most tv shows, it is complete and total bullshit.
Weeks after you died, in lieu of trendy black announcements of bereavement, I wore your old clothes around the house. Sweatpants several sizes too big, CFD t- shirts and boxers, your robe with the enormous hole in the right armpit. That robe, the one piece of clothing you left behind that still smells so much like you I live for the moments when, right after my shower, I can wrap myself in that tattered piece of flannel and smell your scent as strongly as if you'd wrapped your arms around me in embrace.
Months after you died, in lieu of the dating scene, I had moments where, upon receiving friendly compliments from men (CTA bus drivers, cashiers at the grocery store) I wondered if I had done something wrong, something to encourage what was probably nothing more than polite flattery, and rushed away from these encounters as though someone were chasing me. It took a long time for me to recognize the bandit as my own needlessly guilty conscience. And I'm sure this goes without saying but I don't see any tram-slamming in my immediate future.
Yesterday, while watching Game Day Morning I realized that it was the last Sunday of the regular season and began to panic. Football season will be over in about a month and when it ends I will no longer be able to rush home from Amira's school, put on ESPN, listen to Mike and Mike and pretend that I still have someone with whom to share the daily news.
When you died, time stood still for me but now...it's 2017, a new year, a year that you will never get to see. I will have no memories to cherish of you and I in 2017. You won't be here for my birthday in three weeks, you won't be here for Amira's birthday in three months. You won't be here for Bears Friends and Family Day in July, you won't meet my grandma when we go to Barbados for spring break. You're gone.
But as Maggie gently reminded me yesterday, I'm still here. God spared me which means it wasn't yet my time to go. Unlike you, my job on this planet isn't finished yet.
Our plans were simple. To travel as much as possible. You and Dwight were going to go in on a condo in Vegas together, so we'd always have a place to go for long weekends or for Mira's breaks from school. You wanted me to become an EMT, a job that would guarantee I'd have similar hours as you, and if I really had no interest in that job (and I didn't) you hoped I'd have another baby. "I can't do what you can." You'd say. "Fuck all that politically correct bullshit. I'm a man, we aren't nurturers, but you are. You can be a provider if you want to but I cannot be a mother. Only women can give life. Ya'll have the most important job in the world, regardless of whether or not society knows it. Your job is much more important than mine. It's a gift." And I'd look at you, a man with sentiments so different than what I'd always known, and be reminded once again of why I'd fallen in love with you in the first place.
I'd look at you and almost be convinced.
If you were here this is what I'd tell you:
THE CUBS WON THE WORLD SERIES the same year that the Cavaliers won the NBA championship!
The Bears still suck. They went 3-13 this season. Nuff said.
The Raiders kicked ass this year until Derek Carr broke his leg. They're still in the playoffs though so I know how happy you'd be about that.
The Pats are the number one seed in the AFC!
And finallly, in non-sports related news, I outdid myself this Christmas. If you were here you would have killed me but... it was our daughter's first Christmas without you so yes, I went completely overboard. But it was worth it because she didn't cry on Christmas. She still cries a lot. Her heart is completely broken. She's scared to go to sleep at night, scared to be in a room without me, scared she'll lose the other person she loves most in the world. She's in therapy now and I'm going to meet with her counselor to see what else I should be doing at home. But...she didn't cry on Christmas. Your entire family was here, minus Dwight and Danielle, and she had a wonderful day.
I don't think I'm in denial anymore. I was angry for a minute there. Very, very angry at God for taking you, and even angrier at you for leaving me. Angry at myself for every argument we ever had (even the ones that were your fault), angry for not having a second child, angry for not giving you everything you could have possibly wanted in what would turn out to be a life ended way too soon. But I don't feel as angry anymore and when I do, the anger seems to have redirected itself to its rightful target, the bastard who took you away from us in the first place.
You used to say I was the strongest person you knew but that I just didn't know it yet. Well I know it now. And I know that eventually I'll be okay. Doesn't mean I'll stop missing you, or loving you, or wishing you were here. But...my goal for 2017 is to be okay again. And that's the most I can ask for right now.
