Costa Bravo

Many years ago Mark and I went to Spain for a conference he was attending. We had three young kids at the time and it wasn’t cheap for me to fly there with him, but he came home one day and said he’d booked the flight despite me repeatedly saying we couldn’t afford it. His mom came into town to take care of the kids and when we got to Atlanta and checked in for our flight to Barcelona, we found out we’d been upgraded to first class. Everything from that point on was perfect and there is something about exploring a new city with someone you love that elevates all the senses. We would go on other great trips but there was never another quite like that. Maybe it was because it was our first international trip together, or maybe it was two young, exhausted parents who found their way back to each other in a beautiful place. Whatever the magic was, whenever we made travel plans it always circled back to that trip. “Spain,” we would both say sighing. “Nothing will ever beat Spain.”

But whenever I talked about it to anyone else and was asked what part of Spain we’d been to, I could never remember. Over and over I’d have to ask Mark. He was like an encyclopedia. He had an ability to remember a multitude of specific facts on many topics with ease. A year before he died we saw Dunkirk, and all the way home he spoke in detail about WWI – things that were completely unknown to me. When I asked him how he could remember so much with such accuracy, he said that whenever he found out something interesting he’d sink into it. While there is plenty I find interesting, too, I never seemed to be able to retain anything with the ease he did.

Mark wasn’t so great at remembering other things like parent-teacher conferences, signing up for health insurance during open enrollment until the very last day, dinner plans, or significant dates. For that he relied on me. The day after he died when a close friend came to the house, he told us that he and Mark had made plans to meet for lunch. Mark never showed up. They rescheduled. Mark never showed up. Finally, on the third try Mark remembered to meet him. His mom would often say that he lacked common sense but that wasn’t the case at all. His mind was in constant motion with plans and experiments and papers and grants. He was the juggler of many professional demands, I kept track of the rest.

One time we got invited to a dinner party at the home of Mark’s boss. There was a big meeting in town and Mark said there were some heavy hitters in the science world that would be there. We assumed that other people in the department would also be attending but when we got there it was only us and a table full of people we didn’t know. Mark could handle that kind of stuff with ease. Me? Not so much. I was mostly a stay-at-home mom at the time which was the kiss of death to any conversation with a bunch of scientists, but over the years I learned to hold my own even if it was pretty shaky. After dinner, the conversation of the table turned to wine and our dinner companions knew their years, their barrels, their oakiness, their grapes. I was amazed at all the information these passionate wine drinkers had, and said, “So how do you know all this? Do you google it?”

There is a faux pas and then there is a FAUX PAS. Everybody stopped talking and looked at me. Turns out it’s rather insulting to ask a table full of people who do research for a living if their vast knowledge comes from Google. Mark leaned over and whispered, “Thanks for ruining my career.” I recovered quickly and said, “I mean, of course, you couldn’t possibly learn all this from a basic internet search. I was kidding. Ha. Ha. Ha.” Then I asked some dopey questions about grapes in an effort to pull my husband’s career out of the flaming dumpster that I set ablaze. All the way home, Mark imitated me. “Do you goooooooogle it?,” he kept saying and we laughed until we cried that two box-o-wine hacks like us got an invite to such a classy party. “The good thing about wine coming out of a cardboard box,” I said to him, “is that you never have to worry about it being too oaky.”

I recently read that when you lose a spouse it’s like burning a library down. That is true and it often feels debilitating to not have Mark here to rely on for so many things. I am winging life, and it feels as awkward as my attempt at dinner party conversation with a bunch of people out of my league. I forget things, I overthink things, I sleep too much or not at all, I buy too many clothes to fill the gaping hole where my husband used to be, I cry, I rage, I’m hopeful, I’m depressed, I walk around this house like it’s some kind of labyrinth in hopes that the last time I circle, Mark will be there to tell me again that he married up, that I’ll always be his girl. My grief job requires me to untangle myself from a lifetime of us so that I can move forward, and most days I have a bad attitude about it.

As for Spain, I asked Mark so many times where we went that I put it in my notes on my phone. We went to Costa Brava, and like the day he ended his life, I remember everything about it. Ever since then my memories are in a constant battle to be acknowledged, so much so that I am always confused as to whether I am dancing with the angels or dancing with the devil. The only thing that is certain is that it’s impossible to learn the steps.

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