I'm Missing You

Dear Lorenzo,

It's 7:43 p.m. and I'm lying in bed, watching Thursday night football and talking to you while Amira PRESUMABLY finishes her homework upstairs.

This was one of the longest weeks I've had since you've been gone.

In preparation for my first day of work, I put Amira to bed early on Sunday night. I signed off on her agenda, packed her homework folder, and made both her breakfast and lunch ahead of time. I set my alarm for 5:45 a.m. so I'd have time to workout before getting myself showered and dressed by 7:30 a.m. I went to bed that night, certain that I was completely ready for my first day on the job.

But at 4:30 a.m., Amira awoke from a bad dream and couldn't fall back asleep. And at 5:30 a.m. she began to cough.

Having been her mother for the past 9 1/2 years, I know the difference between the beginning of an asthma attack and the beginning of a cold. I know when Amira cannot possibly go to school without coughing herself sick, and I know when a few sessions with a nebulizer is all she needs. From the sounds of Monday's cough I knew she probably shouldn't go to school but that her cough wasn't bad enough for me to miss my first day of work. She was still eating, laughing and watching TV and these are all good signs. So with both Amira and your mom's encouragement, I left my, only-just-starting-to-get-sick daughter home with grandma.

I was gone for exactly five hours including travel time, and for exactly five hours I worried non-stop. I worried while being trained on a new-to-me computer program. I worried when I texted your mom to check in and she didn't text back. I worried until 12:00 p.m. when I left the office, called the house phone and Amira picked up and let me know she was okay.

And when I got home and gave her nebulizer treatments every 4 hours on the dot, when I put her in a steamy shower and let her breathe in the heavy, moist air, when I put her to bed that night with her head propped up on damn near every single pillow in this house, I worried about my baby then too.

Being a single mom is hard. Being a single mom to a child with a chronic illness is fucking brutal. I absolutely know this could be so much worse. The support I get from both of our families is something I will NEVER be able to repay. The fact that our daughter "only" has cough variant asthma and never has problems breathing is a gift compared to what others have to endure. We have health insurance, a roof over our heads, enough food to eat and clothes on our backs but...when I hear her cough, I worry incessantly anyway.

If you'd been here this week, you would have SUCKED ASS at being supportive.

You would have gotten on my damn nerves with all of your ineffective, all-natural home remedies. You would have called me overanxious and neurotic. I would have called you callous and insensitive. We would have driven each other crazy until Amira's cough had subsided, and then we would have grinned at each other sheepishly, grateful that this episode had ended at last.

There is not another soul on this planet who could work my last good nerve that way that you did but sometimes, when our daughter's sick and I'm all alone with my worry, Lorenzo, I miss you anyway.

Good Enough

Dear Lorenzo,

It's Friday night and Amira and I are sitting in my bed, she on her recorder, practicing, and me on the tablet, talking to you.

I've spent a lot of time in bed over the past two years.

After you died I kept my bedroom door closed and slept on the living room futon for 365 days. On weekday mornings I'd take Amira to school and then rush home to lie on that futon for five hours straight. I'd spend my days listening to whatever was on ESPN and the sound of your mother's footsteps, pacing back and forth in her apartment, just above my head. For an entire year I'd bury myself amongst pillows and comforters, amongst my shock and my denial, and I'd pray that somehow you'd come back to me, that the accident was just a bad dream.

It was a long road to acceptance but almost two and a half years later, I've finally arrived.

Amira and I...our lives aren't going to be the same as they once were. We may never go to Vegas again, much less get a second home there as you and your brother once planned. And your dream of  retiring at 50, getting yourself a scooter and moving into my mother's "old age home" isn't going to happen either. Instead, you're gone and I'm left trying to figure everything out on my own.

I don't have all of the answers yet, hell, I may not have any at all, but as soon as I "woke up" from the spell your death had cast, I knew where I had to begin.

On Monday I'm going to do something you swore I'd never do again.

I'm going to start a new job OUTSIDE of the home.

On Monday morning I'm going to wake up at 6:00 a.m., workout, shower and get dressed in clothes that aren't my usual mismatched pajamas. I'll get Amira up, clothed and fed. I'll take her to school, then rush to the El and head downtown to work in an office from 9:00 am. - 1:00 p.m., three or four days a week.

I finally got a job. A temp job, but a job nonetheless. A job that will allow me to take our daughter to school and pick her up everyday. A job that will allow me to pay off my credit card debt and still have a ridiculously over the top Christmas for Amira. A job that will remind me of what it feels like to be something other than a mom. Something other than your partner. Something other than the girl who lost half her heart when her boyfriend died way too soon.

It's just a temp job, just part-time but...it's a start. And it's a reason to get off of the futon. And right now, that's good enough for me.