Be Not Afraid

I pretty much have lived most of my life afraid. Afraid in grade school of never cracking the code to learn how to read, afraid in high school of never having anyone to eat lunch with in the cafeteria, afraid of never finding a partner in life, afraid I’d never get pregnant, afraid of being broke, afraid of a terminal illness, afraid, afraid, afraid.

I have been afraid of heights for a very long time and yet went to the top of Mt. St. Helens. This was Mark’s idea on a trip back from Seattle after seeing some old grad school friends. I was terrified. It took us forever to get to the top, but there I was curled in a ball on the front seat Lamaze breathing my way up. As scared as I was the view was worth it. I have never seen anything like it in my life. According to the locals things were coming back to life in leaps and bounds, but to my eyes the devastation years after the top of that mountain blew off were beyond words.

Four years ago on a trip to Montana for a biochem meeting, we took a detour on the way home to Glacier National Park. The Road to the Sun is a steep climb up thousands of feet and on the way Mark drove and pointed everything out to me, not because I couldn’t see it for myself, but because he knew if he kept talking to me it would keep me calm. When we did reach the top he told me to relax in the car for a few minutes while he looked out on the gravel edge. It seemed like a reasonable suggestion for my phobia, but watching him taking that view in made me realize I was missing out and so I jumped out of the car and joined him. Not as close to the edge as him, but close enough to know that I’d always remember that stunning landscape.

There were many adventures with Mark. Wading in creeks looking for fish, trekking through knee high weeds along the roadside and leaping back when he’d flip a discarded piece of wood looking for snakes, hiking up the sand dunes along Lake Michigan, swatting mosquitos in a dense, humid nature center. Mark did not live small. He found adventure in his daily life and was on a near constant search for all signs of life.

With Mark by my side I was less afraid of everything. Even when I thought it was a bad idea, or in my anxious mind a highly dangerous one, I went along for the ride. Sometimes he made fun of me because even I knew I was often being ridiculous, sometimes I could feel his gentle hand on the small of my back, sometimes he would give me a lengthy explanation of how proteins fold for distraction.

In all these years of being afraid, there was no fear more terrifying to me than that of someone I love dying suddenly. Many times I read of those deaths, those come from nowhere accidents or the intentional ending of one’s life, and I could not fathom how anyone could recover from that.

My biggest fear is now my daily life. There was no goodbye, no I love you, no hey buddy don’t you even think of leaving me because you made everything better. No kiss, no wink, no hand reaching for mine before we both fell asleep, no please wait one day for things to get better before you think about ending your life. No but the kids, Mark, you know the kids and Mabel adore you.

One day he was here and the next he was gone and ever since I have looked for him everywhere. Two months later my heart still skips a beat when I see a cyclist. There you are, Mark. We’ve all been looking for you. I look in the cold, cloudy sky, in the wind, in the nearly barren trees, in the dark night. I never stop looking but I have always known that Mark was an explorer at heart. That given the chance to see it all he’d soak in every minute, every experience, every flutter of life. That he really is everywhere and trying to tell me that the universe, the goddamn universe, Kath, is blowing his mind. Everything has its season and so I have faith (very, very tenuous faith) that one of these days he’ll stop wandering and come back to rest in my soul where he belongs.

And when that day comes, that sweet, longed for day, my eyes will no longer see the devastation but the life.