Eight: Memento Vivere

Dear Mark,

This week marks eight years since you left this world for the next. I was recently telling someone that after you died and I went back to work, I was walking towards the bathroom from my office in the Student Union, glanced over to the other side of our floor, and reversed course. For months I had searched everywhere for you, and on that day I was certain you were hiding at the end of that darkened hallway and had decided to surprise me by showing up at my job. Instead, I found a group of students eating their lunch in the Student Government Office and I hurriedly turned around and hid in the back stairwell in shock. I don’t know if I was more stunned that you weren’t there or that I had completely lost my mind.

While that memory and others are so vivid, much of those early years are a blur. Everything seemed like it was in freefall and for the life of me I could not get a grip on a single thing to stop descending into blackness. I would count down one day without you, one week, two, three, a month, the holidays, six months, birthdays, our anniversary, and then the dreaded first year which is now shockingly times eight. For the longest time if felt like you were right there but now I can’t even remember the last time you were in my dreams. Photos of you pop up on my phone all the time. Sometimes they make me smile and other times I stare at them in disbelief. Were you even real?

But if nothing else since you’ve been gone your family has collectively forged on, of which there isn’t a single trophy or awards ceremony. The kids are doing well – genuine in their support, their empathy, their humor, and their outrage at all the stuff we distinguished as right from wrong when they were growing up. They live our values in everything they do which feels like an A+ on our parenting report card. Maggie is in her 16th year of teaching and her joy at being the school librarian and introducing literature no matter the age is something to behold. I have stood by and watched as the kids in her school flock around her like she’s Mary Poppins with a carpetbag full of just the right book for each of them. Will was the lead designer of a high school career center and last week he gave Michael and me a tour where he explained the thought process behind every inch of it. It was incredible and he wore one of your sportscoats for the grand opening which he didn’t tell me about until the next day because he said I already looked like I was about to cry. This summer Mallory graduated with a masters degree in clinical psychology and started a job as a therapist for a mental health clinic. Our family North Star and little guru is now out in the world being a beacon of hope for others. And after eight years, her and Rubin will be tying the knot. He’s perfect for her and I’m certain you would love him.

The grandkids, oh sheesh, they are a delight. Maggie and Nate are great parents, though currently master juggling all the commitments that come with three kids. They remind me so much of us way back when. Their littles are each their own brand of spitfire which brings me immense joy. They love coming over because I pretty much treat them like free range chickens and let them wander the house, the yard, and the refrigerator. I’m sure if you were here you would try to pump the brakes on that but you’d be surprised how easily they can make you fold.

As for me, I am convinced that you sent Michael to my doorstep like a stork dropping off a baby. You knew my affinity for those science types and he is one of the best. He loves me well – thoughtful, kind, and, most importantly, he makes me feel safe which I desperately needed after you died. Since last fall we have been engaged and every month we talk about getting married which, so far, we haven’t managed to do. My life with him is quiet and too cherished to reveal much except that whatever I write about you goes the same for his Marlene. We live in gratitude for what we were lucky enough to have and what comes next.

This date, your death date, always hits me hard. Like clockwork this year and every year before, I have been sick. Knocked flat by a virus and as you would so eloquently say, “I am coughing up a lung.” I never know what to expect other than for a few days my body will remember the day acutely and will come crashing down in spectacular fashion. You’d think by now I’d be prepared but I never am and doubt I ever will be.

The world is a catastrophic dumpster fire and I’m glad you and the bruised heart you lived with aren’t here to be a witness to it. But despite that and many other challenges, in your absence we found our footing and have remembered to live. Memento vivere, and however that looks on the other side I pray the same for you.

love,
k.

P.S. The moon these last few days, right?