Parallel

When Maggie was a mere six weeks old, Mark and I packed up the graduate student life and moved to Maryland where he had accepted a position with the National Institutes of Health as a post-doc. The whopping salary for this illustrious career move in 1987 was $24,000. When we arrived, Mark ended up moving nearly everything out of the truck himself until a new neighbor came along and helped him with the heavy stuff. That would be our first indication that this move and the neighborhood we landed in would be a good fit for our little family.

That night as Mark was breaking down boxes at the dumpster, he met Betty. Betty was the mother of one of our neighbors, one who had a baby that was three weeks old. “I saw you moving in earlier,” she said. “And I saw that you have a baby. See that house over there? That’s where my daughter and her husband and her baby live and your wife needs to meet my daughter soon.” Mark nodded. “Soon,” she said. It wasn’t so much of a suggestion as an order.

“So am I just supposed to go over there and knock on the door?” I asked Mark when he told me about the conversation with Betty. He said he thought so and it all seemed kind of odd to me but I knew nobody and was already feeling lonely in this new city, so one morning I took my baby and walked a few doors down and knocked on the door. Betty, who had never met me, knew exactly who I was. “Oh, I’ve been waiting for you,” she said. “Come upstairs and meet Carla and Christopher.”

The rest, as they say, is history. Carla’s husband, Jim, was an OB/GYN at Bethesda Naval Hospital – across the street from the NIH. With no family close by and husbands who were always working, Carla and I and our babies spent a lot of time together. After a few years and another baby, Jim and Carla would move a few miles away to a rental house but we remained close. Sometimes meeting at the mall so our kids could run off some energy in the play area, a wading pool in their backyard, a weekend at the ocean with all of us, including our elusive husbands.

When I was pregnant the second time, ultrasounds were the exception and not the rule for prenatal care. My dad’s cancer had come back and I was under enormous stress, and despite begging my own doctor I was told I did not need a scan. I told Carla and she arranged for Jim to give me one at the Naval Hospital. We would sneak in after hours – me, my husband, my toddler, Carla, her toddler, and her baby boy so that Jim could give me an ultrasound. In that little, darkened exam room he would tell us that both mama and baby were healthy, and when he was done he opened the door and yelled, “It’s a boy.” Carla came in with all the kids she’d been wrangling on her own in the hallway and we were all so happy and excited – our own little reveal party before those were even a thing.

As the years went by, Jim and Carla had a third baby (this time a girl), moved to Italy, then back to Maryland and finally home to Cleveland when Jim left the navy and went into private practice. We would leave Maryland for a move to Kansas City where Mark had accepted a position at a university and a third baby (another girl) would come our way too. In different cities with our husbands and three kids, we bought houses and cars, weathered scouts and sports, ACT tests, injuries, boyfriends, girlfriends, break ups and break downs. Through it all Carla and I would always say that we were living parallel lives.

Four years ago, Jim and Carla came to Kansas City for Jim to compete in a triathlon. It was the first time in all those years that it was just the four of us – no kids to corral as they were all on their own by then. We went out to dinner, an art museum, had margaritas, and fell into long-established patterns. Jim and Mark talking about science and medicine, Carla and I about being empty nesters and travel and what was next. Despite the time and miles that had been between us throughout our friendship, there was never any awkwardness to navigate. The bond that we had established in those early years in Maryland never wavered.

The summer of the following year, Carla texted me that they were on their way to Sloan-Kettering. Jim had been diagnosed with a cancer that did not respond to chemo or radiation, surgery was his only choice. During the time that they were there, Carla and I texted and talked many times throughout the day. Mark and I were so worried about Jim but another bombshell would drop a few weeks later. Carla was diagnosed with breast cancer.

Carla would fare better than Jim. I wouldn’t find this out until May when I texted her a cheery update on Mark and I and the kids and she texted back the news that Jim’s cancer had come back and there was nothing more to be done. When I told Mark his whole body slumped. This world without Jim, he said. Not possible. I called her the next day and on every Friday after that I texted or called her to check up on how they were both doing.

On my daily walks this summer, I would think of things I could do for Carla in the future when all those lonely days set in. I decided that her and I would take a trip to Maine next summer. Mark and I had been there for only a day last year and loved it, and it seemed like something Carla would probably like as well. I told Mark my plan and he thought it was a great idea.

At the end of June, Jim, Carla, and the kids took a last vacation together at a resort in Missouri – about three hours from our house. Carla invited us down for a get-together. I had my doubts. This seemed intrusive on what had to be an emotional gathering for them but she insisted. Mark and I drove down with plenty of anxiety. We had not seen Jim in four years after competing in a triathlon. Would he be so thin and sick that the shock show on our face? Would we stick our foot in our mouths and say something stupid? Would both of us start crying?

We needn’t have worried. Jim looked exactly like Jim, and Carla was beaming, and we had the best time with them and their kids. All three hours on the drive home and for the following weeks, we talked over and over about how great it was to see them. On the other end of Missouri and then back home in Cleveland, Carla would tell me they were saying the same thing.

After that visit I thought about this trip to Maine every day. How I had to make it happen, how I had to research the area for things for us to do, how her and I were going to get there come hell or high water. But every time I thought about this trip, every single time, Mark wasn’t there. I would start to walk and think about it and surmise that he would be home and going to work. The next day I would start thinking about it and when there was no Mark I would wonder why it mattered to me so much. He fully supported this week away with Carla that didn’t include him. The next day I would start walking and planning again, and when there was no Mark I thought maybe he would be gone on a work trip at the same time. This happened over and over and over until as soon as I started thinking it the same question popped up.

Where was Mark?

I could not see him. I could not place where he was. He was gone and it bothered me so much I stopped thinking about this trip to Maine.

On the early morning hours of September 5th, I texted Carla the news about Mark. Her and Jim, like everyone else were stunned. A few days later she called me while sitting outside looking at a lake. Jim was being settled into hospice and I told her the heartbreaking details that were too much to share earlier. She told me the heartbreaking end days of life with her husband.

Eleven days after Mark died, Carla texted me that Jim had passed away that morning. The goofballs are together, she said.

Thirty one years and three months after we met we were both widows in a span of days.

Parallel again.