The Tenuous Gap

July 12, 2017.Reading time 4 minutes.

I walked to a familiar place and she was there. Ten years old, not a care in the world. Happy, bubbly, effervescent. I tried to keep from hugging her every second because I knew what she did not: I knew her existence was impossible. Even asleep I knew. It could never last long enough. But I didn’t want to act like I knew for fear something would change.

She glided – her full, long hair bouncing as we walked. We talked about everything and nothing. She held my hand innocently – that little hand threading itself into mine. I felt a stillness and a stirring love, immutable passion toward this thing that was and is no more. This family, forever changed. Still living, breathing, loving… but different than before. My restless soul felt peace.

Friends came to us and marveled because they knew what she did not. And I asked, “Do you see her? Am I crazy?”

They affirmed her presence and we strolled on. Blissfully and mercifully we strolled on.

And then, she left. As quickly as she came, she is gone and I am awake immediately. Morning light peeks around black curtains facing east. I roll onto my back and blink away tears because she is gone. Gone.

The distance between her visits has been too long. I lay awake, cursing the cruel ceiling that won’t let my mind drift back to sleep. It can’t rest now. It is focused – those bygone days of completeness… that little hand threading itself into mine. Long minutes pass. Cursing rolls to acceptance of what cannot be changed and the dream that will not be resurrected. I am keenly aware that the pillow is wet, past damp, it is wet. Are the tears rolling down my face of longing? Or are they tears of happiness? Because for a moment, for just a brief moment I felt it all! The hope… the love… the completeness… the sadness of loss.

“I love being here with them, but I hate being here without her.”

Without her is the way we now live. When loss digs its heals into one’s soul, life becomes a struggle to find stasis. There is a tenuous gap between happiness and sadness. The two are intertwined. Happiness is a possibility, sadness inevitable and thus there exists a fight for the zero point while being pulled at both ends – the little flag on a tug-of-war rope. Most grievers would say that happiness is the underdog. It never wins for long.

I am a griever. Yet I am a dreamer, too. I dream, and she is there. And I am happy for a moment. Eventually I must wake up and pull the rope against the big brute of sadness for my share of happiness – however small the portion. I will pull. I will smile. I will win… at times. I will also lose. But until my dying day I will pull. For even a fleeting victory is worth the struggle.

A Mother’s Heart and the Loss of Debbie Reynolds

December 31, 2016.Reading time 6 minutes.

My wife is a huge fan of old movies. She has opened a whole world of black and white classics to me over the years and I do admit there is something very special about Casablanca, Singin’ in the Rain, and My Fair Lady that you don’t get in modern cinema. I even have an appreciation for the sweet old Rock Hudson and Doris Day movies she loves so much. With that in mind, it would be no surprise to you that she adores Debbie Reynolds. In fact, we used to sing Good Morning and Lullaby in Blue to our kids when they were little.

After you watch someone on screen for decades and peek into their candid lives, you sort of feel like you know them. You can almost pick one of their roles and choose the personality you think you would like best (which would almost certainly leave you disappointed should you ever meet them.) Unfair or not, we all do it and she chose the wholesome, determined, and loving Polly Parish from Bundle of Joy for Debbie Reynolds. (Ironically, during the filming of that movie she was pregnant with her husband and co-star, Eddie Fisher’s baby.)

This week, she was very sad to hear news of Debbie Reynolds’ passing shortly after the death of her daughter. She was sad, but she also understood in a keen and tragic way. There is something unique about a mother’s heart and the toll the death of her child takes on it. That grief cuts an unfair swath that simply can’t be mended. I don’t discount the pain a father feels, but there is a unique and special bond between mother and child and quite frankly, a woman’s heart has a larger capacity to love which intensifies the pain when that love is ripped away.

I know this because I have watched my wife.

I have watched her rejoice over birth, love through pain, feed, nurture, and invest her heart into four precious lives that were supposed to carry that same torch to their little ones – perpetuating a cycle that started long before her and should have outlived her by many generations.

I have also watched her hold the hand of one of those daughters as her life slipped away and I’ve seen her heart break over and over again as she relives that moment. I’ve watched her rally to be confidant and I have seen her give up and sink into a puddle of confusion and tears.

Shortly after Kylie’s death, I sat with her as she received her own potentially dire diagnosis. In the moment of discovery, I witnessed in her face an attitude much like a song from one of her old movies, Que Sera, Sera (Whatever Will Be, Will Be). Fortunately, her illness was easily treated, but that attitude of capitulation to fate was birthed solely from the loss of her daughter. I am convinced that she would have been unafraid had the prognosis been terminal because her heart is so broken.

I wonder sometimes how her mother’s heart doesn’t just give out and maybe that is what happened to Carrie Fisher’s mom. The piece pulled from her eighty-four year-old heart might have been too much to allow another beat and grief wrapped it up like a giant iron fist and squeezed the life right out.

I get it, I really do.

Were it not for the other children that call my wife mommy, I am not sure if she would be here today. I think her heart may have been too heavy to continue its rhythmic march, but those three became a lifeline and a purpose – little ones who still need her. I am ever-thankful for the way they doggedly clung to their mommy and delicately pieced her heart back together. They became three tangible reasons to continue that maybe Mrs. Reynolds lacked. I understand that she has a son, but he is a grown man long independent. I am sorry for his losses.

For a mother, a child’s death can break not only her heart, but her will to live. Unfortunately, in our childhood cancer community we know too many mothers who have experienced this pain. This week, I have heard some say they are jealous and would rather be gone with their baby than facing the pain of absence. Grief is that hard. Most say they weren’t surprised when they heard of her death and they understand – they get it.

I get it, too.

Rest in Peace, Mrs. Reynolds. May your heart be whole once again as you unite with your daughter in that galaxy far, far away.