Cinco

Dear Mark,

Yesterday marked the day you abruptly left this earth five years ago. The fact that you have remained dead fluctuates from astounding me to pissing me off. A few days after you died, when I had worn and slept in the same clothes for three days, I showered, put clean clothes on, did my makeup. There was so much food coming in the house and I couldn’t eat any of it. When a friend offered to bring me anything I wanted, I asked for a salad. When she arrived with it she said, “This seems really inappropriate to say but you look beautiful.” I didn’t think it was inappropriate at all. I wanted to look beautiful for you when you came back.

I started a small remodel of the upstairs bathroom three weeks ago. It had the kind of chaotic energy all my creative endeavors have which drove you nuts. Even though I always insisted I had a plan and you needn’t worry because IT WAS GOING TO ALL COME TOGETHER AND BE GREAT, I was always (and still am) flying by the seat of my pants. Months ago I called the guy who did the kitchen, he put me on the back burner which was fine, I called him again, and he said he’d get back to me which I’d heard before, and then he called the following week and said he’d be starting the next day. He demo’d the floor and said tile would be going down the next day and I didn’t even have tile. Hell, I hadn’t even looked at tile so I went on a frantic search that night with Will who picked a few samples out and said, “Let’s take these home and try them out,” and I said, “Yeah, no, I have to buy this one and cross my fingers it works because Kyle is laying it tomorrow.” Will let out a long sigh and said “Jeezus, Mom” which was very reminiscent of you.

While the upstairs bathroom was torn up, I was using the downstairs bathroom. I don’t know why you liked showering in there. The shower head and water pressure sucked but that may be because it’s the first time it’s been used in five years. Every night I’d go down, turn the water on, step in, and the first thing I’d see was your bar of soap and a bottle of shampoo tucked in the corner, on the other side your netty pot. Showering with the relics of the life we used to have was like keeping company with a ghost and I never lasted longer than five minutes.

Last month the kids and I all went to Ashley’s wedding. Let me tell you (as if you didn’t know), your kids are so much fun. When Mal and Rubin made it to our hotel and we were so excited to meet them in the lobby, the desk agent told us we had to lower our voices because it was midnight and they had a strict policy on noise which made me giggle because they had a far less strict policy on the smell of weed wafting through the place or providing hot water. The next morning we went to downtown Ann Arbor, had coffee, spent forever in a bookstore, then ate lunch and watched the coming and goings of the Pride Festival. The day had the quiet comfort of doing ordinary things with people you love and reminded me of the time you and I were in New York and took our coffee and books and went to Central Park.

I recently had a mammogram which I got a call back on for a spot that needed more imaging and an ultrasound. Early after your death if I’d have had the same call, I would have prayed it was the kind of cancer that took me fast so I could be with you. But my stomach flipped at the news and I told very few people. I longed for the intimacy I had with you, telling you and knowing by your eyes that you were worried and we were in this together, you squeezing my hand extra hard at night. Everything came out okay and I imagined you saying, “I knew you’d be fine,” when I knew, without a single word being spoken between us, that you were relieved beyond measure.

You always had a frantic pace about you that I never understood until recently. There were never enough hours in the day for you to accomplish what you wanted and as soon as you met one goal you’d have five more lined up. For the past two years I have been working at an interior design studio. The environment is wonderful, there are so many perks to this job, I am well paid, and yet so restless. Every month I create invoices for clients’ billable hours which requires me to take the notes the designers input and turn them into pretty little sentences. The guidelines are very specific and the writing has to be tight, not one unneccessary word. I edit daily which I think has helped me in my own writing, but on the flip side of that is accounting and spreadsheets and coding massive credit card bills. I’m not doing what I’m most talented at or proud of so I have a goal and a plan for the spring. I am not wringing my hands over this one as changing course and setting my sail in a new direction, even if it fails spectacularly, could never come close to the worst thing that ever happened to me.

I read that the hummingbirds were migrating so I made some nectar and filled the feeder. It’s in the front garden now where I can keep an eye on it and change it every few days. I had taken the feeder down and was letting it soak for a bit in the sink when I went out the front door and there was a hummingbird hovering where the feeder was supposed to be. With its long beak and the sort of franticness I’m familiar with, he darted back and forth a few times and then disappeared in the blink of an eye.

I don’t know how one ever gets used to the loss of beautiful things.

love,
k.

P.S. The bathroom CAME TOGETHER AND TURNED OUT GREAT 😉