What do you do when the family you had and cared about when you are married, is no longer your family after you are divorced, even though you still care about them?
You see, before I was born I was abandoned by my own father. That kind of damage takes a long time to heal. Then, my step-father and I had our outs. He was a recovering alcoholic for a long time, but lost his footing when my Mom and he divorced (I was in college at that point). I had to learn to shut him out of my life, and he has at times put a foot through the door that I've had to again, shut. That kind of hurt similarly takes a while to heal. That hurt is only prolonged when the people you cared about as your family, suddenly disappear from your life. They die too, in a way, and you must grieve them... but what happens when they really pass from this earth? What are the "right" feelings to have?
I was with my ex-husband from 19 to 30 years old. He was my first real boyfriend. I loved him with an intensity only a silly girl can, entrusting him with all my secrets and desires. His family became my family. In college, his grandfather, Grandpa John, lived only about a mile away and he quickly became my "Grandpa John" as well. The same went for my family. My grandfather (with whom I am very close) and "Jack" became quite close as well. Our grandfathers met and spent time with each other. My own grandfather continues to speak very highly of Grandpa John.
Grandpa John, who was born the year women got the right to vote and the White Sox threw the world Series, was getting along in years even then and "Jack" and I visited him often for dinner, helping him around the house or running errands. Even after we graduated and moved an hour away, we visited continued to make the short trek to Plattsburgh to check in on him. We helped him put up his Christmas decorations as we listened to his stories about the War and his early days. He loved history and he loved telling stories. He was a remarkable man in so many ways. Even though he was getting on in years, he was quick witted, sharp at calculations, and as a retired accountant, he still provided advice and accounting services to his family and friends.
Grandpa John was my grandpa for ten years. He sent me birthday cards, talked to me on the phone (he called Jack almost every afternoon at the same time), and sent Jack and me Christmas cards. I reciprocated. I made him dinners (I still remember the time I made him Venison in the crock pot. Epic fail), sent him our family Christmas cards, bought him his birthday gifts. I continued that even one year after Jack and I separated and then divorced. I loved Grandpa. He was important to me and that didn't go away just because Jack didn't want me anymore.
But, unfortunately, after the separation and ensuing divorce, I never received anything in return. And I never again saw Grandpa John after the Fall of 2007.
I guess I will never know why he chose not to reciprocate my birthday card or Christmas gift. Maybe he wanted to, but felt it would mean he wasn't being loyal to his grandson. And knowing how close they were, I can understand that and respect it.
What is terribly hard for me to understand or accept is how. on November 14, 2013, when Grandpa John died quietly at my ex-mother in law's house, no-one told me. I didn't know until a week later, when one of my daughters mentioned how sad they were. It was a punch right in the gut. Grandpa John had died. He had died and a week had passed and no one had told me.
How do you deal with that blow? I spoke with my ex-husband and offered my condolences. I guess I was hoping I would be given permission to attend his wake, but I wasn't. The information I was given was very limited (most came from the internet) and what little bits my daughters chose to divulge. I did not press them because I did not feel it was right. They were hurting too, missing their great grandpa.
After this, I felt even more abandoned. My ex-husband, I know, was hurting because the man he had called Grandpa had died, but was I allowed to also grieve? I wasn't allowed to publicly or in the traditional way, and so it was privately.
Now, after all this, you may be thinking that I would be bitter. I must admit, a little part of me continues to be hurt, but not bitter. I try not to take it personally. I know that how a person treats another says more about who that person really is and what their fears are. I know that moving on means accepting that there are reasons I will never know and some pains that only heal if I put them aside.
What I know with certainty is that I heal each time I encourage my ex-husband to be a part of my grandfather's life. After the divorce, my Grandpa and "Jack" continued to speak periodically. And finally, when my ex-husband invited my grandfather over to his home with his new wife, I was taken aback a bit, but I realized that it was about love, not about my petty jealousies. My grandfather had come to love this man, as I had once, and who was I to severe those ties? (Especially when I so wished I had been able to remain in contact with Grandpa John). My grandfather still visits Jack, his new wife, and their new baby daughter every once in a while, however it is much less now as he approaches 80 and his health declines.
As he continues to age, I promise that I will continue to keep my ex-husband abreast of my grandfather's progress, and encourage my ex to call my grandfather when it's his birthday or he's not doing well. I will continue to do that because it is the right thing to do. It is what I wished for myself....
And as a final word, I'd like to add, that I wish for Francis John Collins, Grandpa John, peace in his final resting place. May he be reconnected with Connie and spend the rest of his days in her loving arms. I will always remember you, Grandpa, sitting in the kitchen at the typewriter, your glasses perched on the edge of your nose, piles of paperwork on the table (rubber banded together) the biggest smile on your face, and Sammy by your side.
Saturday, January 3, 2015
Thursday, December 25, 2014
"December 25th is not my Christmas" A Divorced Parent's Experience of the Holiday.
It is 8:30 am on Christmas morning. There was a day seven years ago that I never would've imagined I could confront with joy the silence that surrounds me, the emptiness under the tree, and the absence of my two most precious gifts, my young daughters.
It is Christmas for hundreds of my friends, posting photos of merriment on Facebook. It is Christmas for my closest girlfriends, who have included me in a group text message, and my phone is erupting with their back and forth warm wishes for the day. But it is not Christmas for me. Not yet.
If you are a divorced parent, then you can really understand what I'm saying. As much as I wish my girls could be here with me every Christmas morning, the truth is, I have only every other December 25th with them, so I have to accept that instead of 18 "Christmas" mornings with my girls until they go off to college, I will have 9.
Seven years ago this reality nearly crushed me. Our first Christmas apart, I watched them leave me. Elizabeth gripped in her father's arms, Madeline's little hand encompassed by her Daddy's larger one. They were not in tears, but as soon as I closed my door, I was. They came rushing, crashing out. I cried like I did when I was a child, heaving and then a slow hiccuping when my eyes had no tears left.
That Christmas Eve I drove down to the bar and a dear friend of mine, who happened to be the bartender (It's a small town), took a glance at my face and poured me a series of shots. It wasn't the best way to deal with my despair, but at the time it was the only way. Drunk and oblivious, he called a cab. I stumbled through my front door with a pristine snow swirling all around, an evening that in all my childhood dreams had never transpired in this way, and passed out on the couch. I woke up with a pounding headache, nauseous, and the tears spilled again.
I cried because there were not tiny feet coming down the steps. I cried because my husband was not my husband and I was alone. I cried because my heart was broken. I cried because I was lost and I didn't know who I was anymore. And lastly, I cried because I was ashamed that I had gotten drunk on Christmas Eve.
Although subsequent years were not as hard (thank you to my sister, Amanda especially for spending these holidays with me so I wouldn't repeat my shameful previous performance), they were certainly not easy emotionally. And they were not easy financially either. I needed a second job to be able to survive the cost of the holidays. For the first three years I taught summer school. The following two years I got seasonal jobs, working in the mall one year at a jewelry store and another year bartending. I worked only when my daughters were with their father and was able to save enough money to make Christmas happen. Every year I felt sick as November approached. I knew we were entering the holiday season and emotionally and financially this was painful.
This has been the first year that I've looked forward to Christmas since 2006, when my second daughter was born. A combination of factors has changed my misery to merriment. A big part of it was having cancer. Something about thinking you could die changes a person. Another part of it is having an amazing man in my life, who is tremendously kind, generous, understanding (not to mention how much he likes to clean! What more could a girl ask for?). He and his three children and my girls have become a blended family of seven. There are difficult, crazy, chaotic days, but I feel that I am learning a new way to live.
So I am sitting here on Christmas morning with the wind blowing hard through the two story tall pine trees, watching CNN, cupping a mug of steaming coffee, looking forward to early afternoon when my girls come home, looking forward to the evening when Brock's children come home and when Brock finishes his work day. Then, my new family, patched lovingly together from our previous defeats, will celebrate our Christmas eve. It may be a day later on the calendar, but not in our hearts.
For all divorced parents who will celebrate your Christmases, Thanksgivings, Halloweens and Easters apart, I hope you come to see the holiday is in your heart and it's not the date that matters, but the day you create with the ones you love.
Peace and blessings.
It is Christmas for hundreds of my friends, posting photos of merriment on Facebook. It is Christmas for my closest girlfriends, who have included me in a group text message, and my phone is erupting with their back and forth warm wishes for the day. But it is not Christmas for me. Not yet.
If you are a divorced parent, then you can really understand what I'm saying. As much as I wish my girls could be here with me every Christmas morning, the truth is, I have only every other December 25th with them, so I have to accept that instead of 18 "Christmas" mornings with my girls until they go off to college, I will have 9.
Seven years ago this reality nearly crushed me. Our first Christmas apart, I watched them leave me. Elizabeth gripped in her father's arms, Madeline's little hand encompassed by her Daddy's larger one. They were not in tears, but as soon as I closed my door, I was. They came rushing, crashing out. I cried like I did when I was a child, heaving and then a slow hiccuping when my eyes had no tears left.
That Christmas Eve I drove down to the bar and a dear friend of mine, who happened to be the bartender (It's a small town), took a glance at my face and poured me a series of shots. It wasn't the best way to deal with my despair, but at the time it was the only way. Drunk and oblivious, he called a cab. I stumbled through my front door with a pristine snow swirling all around, an evening that in all my childhood dreams had never transpired in this way, and passed out on the couch. I woke up with a pounding headache, nauseous, and the tears spilled again.
I cried because there were not tiny feet coming down the steps. I cried because my husband was not my husband and I was alone. I cried because my heart was broken. I cried because I was lost and I didn't know who I was anymore. And lastly, I cried because I was ashamed that I had gotten drunk on Christmas Eve.
Although subsequent years were not as hard (thank you to my sister, Amanda especially for spending these holidays with me so I wouldn't repeat my shameful previous performance), they were certainly not easy emotionally. And they were not easy financially either. I needed a second job to be able to survive the cost of the holidays. For the first three years I taught summer school. The following two years I got seasonal jobs, working in the mall one year at a jewelry store and another year bartending. I worked only when my daughters were with their father and was able to save enough money to make Christmas happen. Every year I felt sick as November approached. I knew we were entering the holiday season and emotionally and financially this was painful.
This has been the first year that I've looked forward to Christmas since 2006, when my second daughter was born. A combination of factors has changed my misery to merriment. A big part of it was having cancer. Something about thinking you could die changes a person. Another part of it is having an amazing man in my life, who is tremendously kind, generous, understanding (not to mention how much he likes to clean! What more could a girl ask for?). He and his three children and my girls have become a blended family of seven. There are difficult, crazy, chaotic days, but I feel that I am learning a new way to live.
So I am sitting here on Christmas morning with the wind blowing hard through the two story tall pine trees, watching CNN, cupping a mug of steaming coffee, looking forward to early afternoon when my girls come home, looking forward to the evening when Brock's children come home and when Brock finishes his work day. Then, my new family, patched lovingly together from our previous defeats, will celebrate our Christmas eve. It may be a day later on the calendar, but not in our hearts.
For all divorced parents who will celebrate your Christmases, Thanksgivings, Halloweens and Easters apart, I hope you come to see the holiday is in your heart and it's not the date that matters, but the day you create with the ones you love.
Peace and blessings.
Friday, November 7, 2014
The Frenzied Mosaic of a Thousand Deaths (or How Howard Met his Demise)
Here is a piece of fiction I've had written for a very long time
(since 2003) that I'm finally publishing. This is my first piece of fiction that I have shared on this blog. I hope you enjoy it and I welcome feedback!
~April
She closed the door as gently as she could, her heart beating louder than the bare whisper of metal clicking.
"5:30, Eunice. " And louder, "5:30."
Howard's eyes stared forward, focused on the newspaper, although his rigid voice attested to his intense dismay. Her arrival was two minutes later than customary and thus unacceptable.
"Sorry, Howard. I got caught in traffic..." Her voice trailed off as she hurriedly slipped off her white nurse's shoes and padded softly toward the closet to hang her jacket and pocketbook. "The girls...doing homework?" She glanced at the clock. 5:02. Of course they were. What a stupid question, Eunice. She berated herself.
He did not reply. His ignored her question to express that it was beneath him to be concerned with the domestic responsibility.
Her own stupidity at even asking astounded her. She blamed it on her nerves for being late. She knew the routine. Until 5:15 they would toil at the kitchen table, at which time they would close their books, deposit them into their matching blue L.L. Bean bookbags, and hang them on the prescribed hooks in the closet. Noiselessly they would wash their faces, and by 5:20 they would be setting the table: Four bone white Corelle plates, four glasses (right side of plate), resting on four meticulously folded and pristine napkins would be four forks and four knives (left side of plate, knife blade facing the plate, then the fork), and four spoons to the right of the plate.
Two ice cubes in each glass, filled to within an inch of the brim (only with spring water, never with tap). There was never a reason to err as Howard had marked a line on each glass with a permanent marker to ensure compliance.
"Howie..." Eunice started in her sweetest, good-wife voice, "...dinner won't take long. I pre-made it this morning. It will only need to heat through and then it will be ready."
She waited quietly for some reply. A short head nod, a grunt, a look in her direction. Nothing. Her palms began to perspire. She stood for a thirty second spell that felt more like a lifetime prison sentence.
Howard slowly, with production, closed the paper, folding it neatly and crisply in half. He placed it on the table beside him then pushed his glasses up as he turned to her.
"Fine, Eunice." The clock read 5:05.
Howard placed his feet in his leather slippers, then, using both hands, pushed himself up out of the recliner. "I'll have my cigar now," and exited the room, her cue to be about her wifely assignment.
In the kitchen, the only sound was pencils scratching. She entered like a floating phantom, nodding a silent hello, and sharing a commiserate glance with the girls. Outside the kitchen's door, Howard was smoking his cigar, right handed. He had removed his glasses and placed them in his right breast pocket beside a pair of black felt pens. He was staring into the kitchen, almost like he was waiting to catch her making a childish mistake.
Fourteen years ago the girls were born. Eunice and Howard joyfully received the news that they would be blessed with not one, but two healthy girls. To Howard's dismay, they emerged with flaming red shocks of hair.
Eunice sighed, opened the refrigerator, and removed the aluminum foiled Shepard's Pie.
Before the girls' arrival, she'd noticed a quirk here, some paranoia occasionally. Every once in a while, Howard expressed some interesting whimsies, which had intrigued Eunice at the time. It was the 70s then and his crazy ideas and eccentricities were the cornerstone of the 60s culture. She attributed any bizarre behavior to the drugs he'd done at one time.
But fourteen years ago, when the red-headed twins were born, so was a new Howard.
Eunice clicked the dial on the stove to 325. And, without preheating, slid the dish into the oven. It was 5:11. Dinner would be lukewarm or late. Either way was unacceptable.
Before the twins, before Howard, Eunice was enrolled in pre-law at Georgetown University. She had burned her bra, read Kate Millet's book "Sexual Politics" and cheered wildly in '73 when the Supreme Court finally gave women the right to choose with Roe vs Wade.
Men were not just attracted to her physically, although she was easy to look at: hazel eyes, high cheekbones, and dirty blonde hair, a curvaceous bottom half and a waist that dipped in tightly. Her voice, deep and sultry like Lena Horn, easily melted a man's will power. But, she wasn't much interested in men or their will power, despite how they may have felt about her. While she stayed committed to her feminist views, men chased her. One by one they approached, intoxicated by the idea that he may be the one to win her, stifle her independence, bend her to his will. Eventually, the endless phone calls and stares, the appropriate and inappropriately vulgar proposals, unnecessary catcalls, and pinches on her bottom in both bars and crowded elevators, well, eventually she determined to elevate her social circle. That was when she received the happy notice that she'd been accepted into Georgetown. She met Howard her first semester. He was her professor. Mathematics, not Law. It had been a compulsory class.
Howard did not have glasses then, nor did he have pocket pens.
Howard was only moderately attractive, at best. But Eunice found as the semester passed he was witty and intellectually stimulated her. And, for the first time in her life, she was dumbfounded that there was a man who was not sexually overt with her. Never did he steal a glance at her chest. Not once did she catch his eyes on her bottom.
She pursued him. The more he insisted it was inappropriate, the more she pressed. With the class ending and only a final remaining, two months after her first offer, he finally agreed to meet her for dinner.
They held hands with only a chaste kiss here and there for months. Eunice began to go wild, waiting for him to make more remarkable advances.
After five months, during a routine evening "good night" kiss, Howard slipped his tongue between her lips and Eunice's legs began to tremble. She felt herself willing to follow him anywhere, he was a knight in shining armor. She was willing to toss aside any previous notion of careers and success to be taken to the edge of this climactic precipice, where she wanted to fling herself into his passionate embrace.
She was enchanted by him and while he continued to maintain a distance, he slowly and steadily made advances, butterfly kisses on her neck, flowers delivered for no reason, a gentle tug on her hair while kissing, later pushing her and holding her against the steel door during a lingering kiss, before turning abruptly and leaving.
It drove her crazy. That and his brilliant mind. Over coffee he would quote Kafka and Locke. He admired Descartes philosophy on dualism and heralded it as part of his own: insisting they ignore the weaknesses of the human body and focus instead on the innate power of the mind.
One day, inexplicably, while sitting alone in a cafe drinking a black coffee, she suddenly realized it. Her bra burning days were over. She was in love with Howard.
On their eight month anniversary he unexpectedly arrived at her one bedroom apartment (of which he disapproved. A single woman, living alone? How dangerous and inappropriate). In his hand he carried 8 white roses. Not red. Red roses were for love, Eunice knew, and Howard had not once professed his, although Eunice had many times since her black coffee revelation. It was then she agreed to be his wife.
The sound of textbooks closing disrupted Eunice's memory. 5:15. She started the dishes, while the girls tread to the bathroom to clean up.
They made love for the first time after the wedding. It was not the jaw dropping experience Eunice had hoped for. But she was practical and realistic. She knew it wasn't always earth shattering. But after repeated monotonous encounters, she soon realized that sex was routine for Howard. Routine became the word that described Howard's life.
At first it was nothing to even notice. Wake up at 5:30 am and shower. Breakfast at 6:00. Cheerios. Without fail. And strawberries, cut into four chunks. Never sliced. Two pieces of toast with peanut butter, cut in half. She quickly learned to satisfy these needs ("Wipe the peanut butter off the knife onto the bread, Eunice, not on the lid"). At 6:30, after he left for work, she showered and went to classes. Until he decided law was not a profession suited for the mother of his future children. Nursing. Nursing was acceptable for Howard. And so she had accommodated him.
And then, she began to notice more. Every Tuesday and Thursday he called his mother and they spoke for exactly an hour. On Sunday, she called at 4 pm and they spoke for two hours. Eunice always gave him privacy and slipped into the bedroom to wait it out. In the beginning, she'd thought he'd made the calls so frequently just because she was halfway across the country, in North Dakota. It was kind of endearing that he cared that much.
But after months, she couldn't understand what they had to speak about for four hours a week. Then, unable to withhold her curiosity, she eavesdropped on a Sunday conversation and was astounded at his demeanor and monotone voice during his calls, "Yes, mother. Of course, dear. I'll be sure to do that. I took my pill at 6:30. Yes, Eunice makes me breakfast every day... No, mother, I would never watch that. It's not appropriate for me. Of course I will say a prayer for you... " and so on and so on with more, "Yes, mothers" and "No, mothers" and then at the end, she nearly gasped at the repetition of, "I love you mother," and then "I love you too, mother." She turned quickly, afraid she would get caught listening and tiptoed back to their room. A single tear had rolled down her cheek. Howard had still not expressed his love to her.
And that was how it went, until the twins came along.
5:20. The girls entered the kitchen, one behind the other. One withdrew plates from the cupboard near Eunice's head, the other retrieved a white linen table cloth from the upper drawer in the oak sideboard.
In the living room, Howard's voice was low, a murmur. Wednesday. Talking to his mother. He had started speaking to her every day recently, but only for ten to fifteen minutes outside of his Tuesday-Thursday-Sunday routine.
Eunice scrubbed the back of a pot furiously, resuming her daydream. She remembered the time she had thought Howard would passionately embrace her and she would be taken to the edge of desire, where together they would spill over, consumed with their love for each other.
Indeed, she had come to the edge. But it was no passionate cliff. It was the intense monotony of the day to day, each predictable and unchanging event, the horror of the invisible leash Howard had placed around her neck (which she felt she had voluntarily handed him) and ultimately it was the life that she had tossed aside, dreams that he has chewed and spit out, that gripped her and drove her to the edge where she found herself now, terrified and wild.
And the twins. She bit her lip. She was allowing him to wield it over her girls. She clenched her fists and jaw, then relaxed them, breathing out deeply. She plunged her hands in again, to finish off the silverware, which she had saved for last as they were her least favorite. The spoons, forks and butter knives she scrubbed and rinsed, then reached for the steak knives which she had not placed in the water, for fear she may accidentally stab herself while reaching around blindly in the soapy water. She did those very last, one by one, carefully sliding the cloth up and down the blade.
"Thank god for daydreams," she whispered. Thank god, she thought, that Howard could not chain her mind.
"Excuse me, Eunice." Howard's unexpected voice caused her to slip and slice open her hand. She looked at the twins, who were looking down. They knew not to speak before they were spoken to.
"I...I'm sorry Howard. I've cut my hand on the knife?" It was a question. It was asking permission for a bandage.
Howard was unconcerned with the steady drip of blood. He cleared his throat ceremoniously, an accusation at the very least.
"5:30, Eunice. 5:30"
Eunice's heart sank. Her hands, covered now in blood, trembled.
"Dinner is served at 5:30... What time is it, Eunice? " She knew that was not a question she was supposed to answer.
The clock on the oven twitched at that very moment. 5:29. She had one minute to have dinner on the table. Howard stood tall now, to his full height. He towered, blocking the light from the chandelier at the table where the girls sat. Eunice cast a longing glance their way. She wished they would look up, look at her. Their eyes continued to be cast downward.
She stared at her girls for a heart breaking moment, one that stood still and was marred by the smell of blood like copper. She saw them now, really saw them. Their hair pulled back off their face severely, into a matronly bun at the bottom of their head. Their mousy brown hair, dyed by Howard when the entered junior high school. Eunice hadn't wanted it but Howard's mother had insisted he do it. She saw them now, in their drab clothes, pale skin, withdrawn mouths.
Howard moved a step toward Eunice and with his breath hot at her ear said, "How am I supposed to wash my hands for dinner if you are bleeding into the goddamn sink?"
"One minute, Howard, I promise. I can clean this right up." Howard did not move, he stayed bent, watching her every movement.
With him so close and the threat of punishment imminent as a result of the tardy dinner, Eunice stifled a muffled sob of relief when the phone rang and Howard backed away. He moved slowly, letting his hand brush her thigh menacingly as he did.
"Hello?... Yes, Of course Eunice is alright.... What? Of course you would be worried. She certainly has not missed a day of work in five years... I will let her know you were concerned."
Her hand, wet and shaking, found the knife. Her fingers gentle traced the smooth blade. The girls were breathing heavily.
Howard placed the phone into its cradle on the wall.
How voice started low then built to a raging crescendo, "Euuunnnice! 5:30. Dinner is served at 5:30 Eunice!"
Howard's hands were on his belt. The punishment. He unfastened the clasp. A square piece of metal that had created so many little frames along her thighs, stomach and chest, black and blue pictures frames by red welts.
"Please, Howard, Please. Not in front of the girls."
He slipped it off in one quick motion. Eunice stepped back, shifting the knife behind her. Howard was a giant in front of her, but behind her she could see Eve standing, moving away from the table and approaching the kitchen. She was carrying the crystal pitcher of water.
Howard lunged forward precisely at the moment Eve, behind him, dropped the pitcher, which shattered into a thousand fragments upon the tile floor.
Each fragment became a mirror, and in its reflection a frenzied human mosaic.
Each fragment became a potential blade which became a thousand stifled memories upon a thousand jabbing thrusts.
When the police arrested Eunice later that evening, in garbled sentences she explained she was standing too close to the edge and she slipped. She had no choice but to jump. They carried her away, ranting like that.
Her last glance was back, at her daughters. Their hair was loose, wild. Their eyes, passionate.
Eve cleaned up the mess of shattered prisms, and later, much later, washed the blood from her hands.
~April
She closed the door as gently as she could, her heart beating louder than the bare whisper of metal clicking.
"5:30, Eunice. " And louder, "5:30."
Howard's eyes stared forward, focused on the newspaper, although his rigid voice attested to his intense dismay. Her arrival was two minutes later than customary and thus unacceptable.
"Sorry, Howard. I got caught in traffic..." Her voice trailed off as she hurriedly slipped off her white nurse's shoes and padded softly toward the closet to hang her jacket and pocketbook. "The girls...doing homework?" She glanced at the clock. 5:02. Of course they were. What a stupid question, Eunice. She berated herself.
He did not reply. His ignored her question to express that it was beneath him to be concerned with the domestic responsibility.
Her own stupidity at even asking astounded her. She blamed it on her nerves for being late. She knew the routine. Until 5:15 they would toil at the kitchen table, at which time they would close their books, deposit them into their matching blue L.L. Bean bookbags, and hang them on the prescribed hooks in the closet. Noiselessly they would wash their faces, and by 5:20 they would be setting the table: Four bone white Corelle plates, four glasses (right side of plate), resting on four meticulously folded and pristine napkins would be four forks and four knives (left side of plate, knife blade facing the plate, then the fork), and four spoons to the right of the plate.
Two ice cubes in each glass, filled to within an inch of the brim (only with spring water, never with tap). There was never a reason to err as Howard had marked a line on each glass with a permanent marker to ensure compliance.
"Howie..." Eunice started in her sweetest, good-wife voice, "...dinner won't take long. I pre-made it this morning. It will only need to heat through and then it will be ready."
She waited quietly for some reply. A short head nod, a grunt, a look in her direction. Nothing. Her palms began to perspire. She stood for a thirty second spell that felt more like a lifetime prison sentence.
Howard slowly, with production, closed the paper, folding it neatly and crisply in half. He placed it on the table beside him then pushed his glasses up as he turned to her.
"Fine, Eunice." The clock read 5:05.
Howard placed his feet in his leather slippers, then, using both hands, pushed himself up out of the recliner. "I'll have my cigar now," and exited the room, her cue to be about her wifely assignment.
In the kitchen, the only sound was pencils scratching. She entered like a floating phantom, nodding a silent hello, and sharing a commiserate glance with the girls. Outside the kitchen's door, Howard was smoking his cigar, right handed. He had removed his glasses and placed them in his right breast pocket beside a pair of black felt pens. He was staring into the kitchen, almost like he was waiting to catch her making a childish mistake.
Fourteen years ago the girls were born. Eunice and Howard joyfully received the news that they would be blessed with not one, but two healthy girls. To Howard's dismay, they emerged with flaming red shocks of hair.
Eunice sighed, opened the refrigerator, and removed the aluminum foiled Shepard's Pie.
Before the girls' arrival, she'd noticed a quirk here, some paranoia occasionally. Every once in a while, Howard expressed some interesting whimsies, which had intrigued Eunice at the time. It was the 70s then and his crazy ideas and eccentricities were the cornerstone of the 60s culture. She attributed any bizarre behavior to the drugs he'd done at one time.
But fourteen years ago, when the red-headed twins were born, so was a new Howard.
Eunice clicked the dial on the stove to 325. And, without preheating, slid the dish into the oven. It was 5:11. Dinner would be lukewarm or late. Either way was unacceptable.
Before the twins, before Howard, Eunice was enrolled in pre-law at Georgetown University. She had burned her bra, read Kate Millet's book "Sexual Politics" and cheered wildly in '73 when the Supreme Court finally gave women the right to choose with Roe vs Wade.
Men were not just attracted to her physically, although she was easy to look at: hazel eyes, high cheekbones, and dirty blonde hair, a curvaceous bottom half and a waist that dipped in tightly. Her voice, deep and sultry like Lena Horn, easily melted a man's will power. But, she wasn't much interested in men or their will power, despite how they may have felt about her. While she stayed committed to her feminist views, men chased her. One by one they approached, intoxicated by the idea that he may be the one to win her, stifle her independence, bend her to his will. Eventually, the endless phone calls and stares, the appropriate and inappropriately vulgar proposals, unnecessary catcalls, and pinches on her bottom in both bars and crowded elevators, well, eventually she determined to elevate her social circle. That was when she received the happy notice that she'd been accepted into Georgetown. She met Howard her first semester. He was her professor. Mathematics, not Law. It had been a compulsory class.
Howard did not have glasses then, nor did he have pocket pens.
Howard was only moderately attractive, at best. But Eunice found as the semester passed he was witty and intellectually stimulated her. And, for the first time in her life, she was dumbfounded that there was a man who was not sexually overt with her. Never did he steal a glance at her chest. Not once did she catch his eyes on her bottom.
She pursued him. The more he insisted it was inappropriate, the more she pressed. With the class ending and only a final remaining, two months after her first offer, he finally agreed to meet her for dinner.
They held hands with only a chaste kiss here and there for months. Eunice began to go wild, waiting for him to make more remarkable advances.
After five months, during a routine evening "good night" kiss, Howard slipped his tongue between her lips and Eunice's legs began to tremble. She felt herself willing to follow him anywhere, he was a knight in shining armor. She was willing to toss aside any previous notion of careers and success to be taken to the edge of this climactic precipice, where she wanted to fling herself into his passionate embrace.
She was enchanted by him and while he continued to maintain a distance, he slowly and steadily made advances, butterfly kisses on her neck, flowers delivered for no reason, a gentle tug on her hair while kissing, later pushing her and holding her against the steel door during a lingering kiss, before turning abruptly and leaving.
It drove her crazy. That and his brilliant mind. Over coffee he would quote Kafka and Locke. He admired Descartes philosophy on dualism and heralded it as part of his own: insisting they ignore the weaknesses of the human body and focus instead on the innate power of the mind.
One day, inexplicably, while sitting alone in a cafe drinking a black coffee, she suddenly realized it. Her bra burning days were over. She was in love with Howard.
On their eight month anniversary he unexpectedly arrived at her one bedroom apartment (of which he disapproved. A single woman, living alone? How dangerous and inappropriate). In his hand he carried 8 white roses. Not red. Red roses were for love, Eunice knew, and Howard had not once professed his, although Eunice had many times since her black coffee revelation. It was then she agreed to be his wife.
The sound of textbooks closing disrupted Eunice's memory. 5:15. She started the dishes, while the girls tread to the bathroom to clean up.
They made love for the first time after the wedding. It was not the jaw dropping experience Eunice had hoped for. But she was practical and realistic. She knew it wasn't always earth shattering. But after repeated monotonous encounters, she soon realized that sex was routine for Howard. Routine became the word that described Howard's life.
At first it was nothing to even notice. Wake up at 5:30 am and shower. Breakfast at 6:00. Cheerios. Without fail. And strawberries, cut into four chunks. Never sliced. Two pieces of toast with peanut butter, cut in half. She quickly learned to satisfy these needs ("Wipe the peanut butter off the knife onto the bread, Eunice, not on the lid"). At 6:30, after he left for work, she showered and went to classes. Until he decided law was not a profession suited for the mother of his future children. Nursing. Nursing was acceptable for Howard. And so she had accommodated him.
And then, she began to notice more. Every Tuesday and Thursday he called his mother and they spoke for exactly an hour. On Sunday, she called at 4 pm and they spoke for two hours. Eunice always gave him privacy and slipped into the bedroom to wait it out. In the beginning, she'd thought he'd made the calls so frequently just because she was halfway across the country, in North Dakota. It was kind of endearing that he cared that much.
But after months, she couldn't understand what they had to speak about for four hours a week. Then, unable to withhold her curiosity, she eavesdropped on a Sunday conversation and was astounded at his demeanor and monotone voice during his calls, "Yes, mother. Of course, dear. I'll be sure to do that. I took my pill at 6:30. Yes, Eunice makes me breakfast every day... No, mother, I would never watch that. It's not appropriate for me. Of course I will say a prayer for you... " and so on and so on with more, "Yes, mothers" and "No, mothers" and then at the end, she nearly gasped at the repetition of, "I love you mother," and then "I love you too, mother." She turned quickly, afraid she would get caught listening and tiptoed back to their room. A single tear had rolled down her cheek. Howard had still not expressed his love to her.
And that was how it went, until the twins came along.
5:20. The girls entered the kitchen, one behind the other. One withdrew plates from the cupboard near Eunice's head, the other retrieved a white linen table cloth from the upper drawer in the oak sideboard.
In the living room, Howard's voice was low, a murmur. Wednesday. Talking to his mother. He had started speaking to her every day recently, but only for ten to fifteen minutes outside of his Tuesday-Thursday-Sunday routine.
Eunice scrubbed the back of a pot furiously, resuming her daydream. She remembered the time she had thought Howard would passionately embrace her and she would be taken to the edge of desire, where together they would spill over, consumed with their love for each other.
Indeed, she had come to the edge. But it was no passionate cliff. It was the intense monotony of the day to day, each predictable and unchanging event, the horror of the invisible leash Howard had placed around her neck (which she felt she had voluntarily handed him) and ultimately it was the life that she had tossed aside, dreams that he has chewed and spit out, that gripped her and drove her to the edge where she found herself now, terrified and wild.
And the twins. She bit her lip. She was allowing him to wield it over her girls. She clenched her fists and jaw, then relaxed them, breathing out deeply. She plunged her hands in again, to finish off the silverware, which she had saved for last as they were her least favorite. The spoons, forks and butter knives she scrubbed and rinsed, then reached for the steak knives which she had not placed in the water, for fear she may accidentally stab herself while reaching around blindly in the soapy water. She did those very last, one by one, carefully sliding the cloth up and down the blade.
"Thank god for daydreams," she whispered. Thank god, she thought, that Howard could not chain her mind.
"Excuse me, Eunice." Howard's unexpected voice caused her to slip and slice open her hand. She looked at the twins, who were looking down. They knew not to speak before they were spoken to.
"I...I'm sorry Howard. I've cut my hand on the knife?" It was a question. It was asking permission for a bandage.
Howard was unconcerned with the steady drip of blood. He cleared his throat ceremoniously, an accusation at the very least.
"5:30, Eunice. 5:30"
Eunice's heart sank. Her hands, covered now in blood, trembled.
"Dinner is served at 5:30... What time is it, Eunice? " She knew that was not a question she was supposed to answer.
The clock on the oven twitched at that very moment. 5:29. She had one minute to have dinner on the table. Howard stood tall now, to his full height. He towered, blocking the light from the chandelier at the table where the girls sat. Eunice cast a longing glance their way. She wished they would look up, look at her. Their eyes continued to be cast downward.
She stared at her girls for a heart breaking moment, one that stood still and was marred by the smell of blood like copper. She saw them now, really saw them. Their hair pulled back off their face severely, into a matronly bun at the bottom of their head. Their mousy brown hair, dyed by Howard when the entered junior high school. Eunice hadn't wanted it but Howard's mother had insisted he do it. She saw them now, in their drab clothes, pale skin, withdrawn mouths.
Howard moved a step toward Eunice and with his breath hot at her ear said, "How am I supposed to wash my hands for dinner if you are bleeding into the goddamn sink?"
"One minute, Howard, I promise. I can clean this right up." Howard did not move, he stayed bent, watching her every movement.
With him so close and the threat of punishment imminent as a result of the tardy dinner, Eunice stifled a muffled sob of relief when the phone rang and Howard backed away. He moved slowly, letting his hand brush her thigh menacingly as he did.
"Hello?... Yes, Of course Eunice is alright.... What? Of course you would be worried. She certainly has not missed a day of work in five years... I will let her know you were concerned."
Her hand, wet and shaking, found the knife. Her fingers gentle traced the smooth blade. The girls were breathing heavily.
Howard placed the phone into its cradle on the wall.
How voice started low then built to a raging crescendo, "Euuunnnice! 5:30. Dinner is served at 5:30 Eunice!"
Howard's hands were on his belt. The punishment. He unfastened the clasp. A square piece of metal that had created so many little frames along her thighs, stomach and chest, black and blue pictures frames by red welts.
"Please, Howard, Please. Not in front of the girls."
He slipped it off in one quick motion. Eunice stepped back, shifting the knife behind her. Howard was a giant in front of her, but behind her she could see Eve standing, moving away from the table and approaching the kitchen. She was carrying the crystal pitcher of water.
Howard lunged forward precisely at the moment Eve, behind him, dropped the pitcher, which shattered into a thousand fragments upon the tile floor.
Each fragment became a mirror, and in its reflection a frenzied human mosaic.
Each fragment became a potential blade which became a thousand stifled memories upon a thousand jabbing thrusts.
When the police arrested Eunice later that evening, in garbled sentences she explained she was standing too close to the edge and she slipped. She had no choice but to jump. They carried her away, ranting like that.
Her last glance was back, at her daughters. Their hair was loose, wild. Their eyes, passionate.
Eve cleaned up the mess of shattered prisms, and later, much later, washed the blood from her hands.
Saturday, October 25, 2014
The Death Face and What Cancer Taught Me
I wake, stretching, feeling my achy joints cracking as the last residue of sleep leaves me. 5 am is my time. I love the morning. The quiet. The darkness. The stillness. The children sleeping with cherub cheeks. The Keurig spitting. The furnace kicking alive. The unfulfilled promise of another day.
I push up into a sitting position, reclining against a pile of pillows wedged behind me. Brock has already turned on CNN and he pads into the room, emerging like a shadow, hands laden with two cups of steaming coffee.
"Is she on again?"
The "she" he is referring to is a 37 year old woman who's lifelong dream has been to swim a distance in the Atlantic Ocean that has never been done before. For weeks the news covered the pending journey. This woman had faced a series of setbacks and she'd gritted her teeth, settled in for the long haul, dauntlessly clamoring, refusing to accept defeat. Against all odds, she'd determined to take the risk for this dream and here she was, the culmination of a life's work coming to fruition.
"I think so. She was supposed to have started swimming yesterday I thought." He hands me the coffee and I sip, a steady sigh of steam rising from the surface.
I would not admit it aloud, thinking it is rather cheesy, but I have been silently cheering for this woman, hoping for her success. When the news covered her life's story last week, building audience anticipation for the event, I viewed quietly with the kids and Brock until finally I left the room, tears slipping, and wept alone in the bathroom. Perhaps it was being menopausal that resulted in my behavior, or perhaps my own personal journey through the fire of a hell I didn't know I would be forced to endure. I pray for her success as though my own is incumbent upon it.
There is a sudden cheering on the tv but not a joyful cheer. The surge of noise is a mournful sound. A sound that means "Please, God, no. Don't let it be true." My coffee is almost to my mouth when I hear it and it jolts me so I spill it on my lap, burning into my belly.
And yet I am not even thinking about the burning because on the tv I am watching her swimming. But not for long. Nature has a way of becoming an unexpected guest: a wave so large emerges from the bowels of the ocean that even a seasoned surfboarder would have taken flight. The cameras are on her and then they are not. She is swallowed in one breath by the ocean.
But the cameramen came prepared, with sophisticated underwater equipment. The picture on the tv shows her being flung around, tossed like a pebble, pushed deeper. The sound is a gurgling like too much water being drained from a bathtub. The sound is an echoing reminding me of when I was a child and I would stay underwater in the tub, just my ears, with the water framing my face, and hear the bubbles, the voices, the rushing faucet smashing water.
The camera's light shines on her as she twists and turns. She casts a white glow. An incandescent bulb. She is too deep now. It's been too long. My heart beats hard. Then darkness. The camera malfunctions.
I feel her story though. I know what is happening. She is consumed by the water. It slowly lifts her up now, toward the surface. I can feel her weightlessness, how the water caresses her, thrusting her higher, spitting her out.
She is not afraid. She is not anything. She feels the same calm she has felt only during meditation.
It feels good to let the ocean smash her will, bend her to its own. It feels good to know something bigger than her is enveloping her, part of her and yet very separate. She is pushed one final time forward and then stillness.
Her story is not over. I still see her. Not her face. I have never seen her face. Not all these weeks on television. Never her face. She is facedown on the surface, hair fanning out like weeds, wild, willowy. My view is from under the ocean. It is dark down here but beyond her, the surface. I can see the light. I am moving slowly toward her. She is blackness.
Her hands perpetrate the slow movement of a shy hello, bobbing with the undulation of the waves. Her hair crowds her face but I am close to her now. So close. I know she is dead. I feel her death. It surrounds her. It reminds me of when I was a child playing at the beach and my sisters dug a hole, burying everything from the neck down. Death has swaddled her like a newborn baby wrapped into the cocoon blanket by his mother.
I am close enough now. I gingerly reach toward her hair face. A strange glow behind her I know is just the sun, the sky, the other side, merely inches away. The water is velvet between my fingers as I brush back her hair revealing her face.
I stare at her. It is impossible.
The hair fanned out. The arms askew.
The death face is my own. She is me. We are the same.
Afterward:
This is the dream I awoke from Wednesday morning. It was 3 am. I woke, startled and began to weep quietly. I was still tangled in the dream and tangled in sleepiness and logic was not fully upon me but I knew this dream is a sign. I reached for Brock in the dark and rested my face against his back, letting the dream subside. I drifted back into sleep for an hour and when I woke to take my levothyroxine as I do every day since cancer destroyed a part of me; when I do, the dream reemerge and I can't go back to sleep. I spend an hour in the darkness breaking it apart until eventually I come to understand its meaning.
There was a time only one short year ago when all my life's ambitions were arranged like art in a gallery. I was amazed at the power of my body. Proud at the determination I displayed as I committed myself to more reps, just one more set, another mile, just ten more pounds on that lift. I thought I had it all figured out. It was a puzzle and all of my pieces were placed. I was that close to seeing the finish line.
But you are never allowed to know when it will be taken away from you. You never know when the wings you are given will lift you up so high that you will be among Angels.
I saw for a moment the death face. Just for a while I experienced how it felt to think it would be the end. It was a moment that was too long and too intense. It was a moment that was many moments and the one I remember best is this:
I am laying on the couch again. I am due for surgery in just a few days. It is four o'clock in the afternoon. I am watching my daughter Madeline. She is laying on the floor reading "The Heroes of Olympus". She is ten. Her blonde hair cascades down her back. She is on her stomach and her legs are bent at the knee, feet in the air, kicking slightly back and forth.
.I imagine the moments in her life that I may not ever witness. I see her at her 6th grade graduation and she is still my baby faced girl, slowly emerging into adulthood. Her first junior high dance where she stands in a crowd of her friends and giggles about the boy she is crushing on. Her first solo violin performance in the high school orchestra. Another dance recital. Another birthday. Now she is 16. She plays soccer and scores three goals in one game. She dresses for prom without me, but she thinks of me as she looks at herself in the mirror, makeup, hair piled atop her head in blonde curls. I see her graduate at the top her class. Her dad is so proud. Her sister hugs her tight in the picture. She goes to college and meets the man she will marry. They honor me at the wedding. Her Tika, my sister, speaks on my behalf. She has her first baby. It is a girl. I am a grandma. I am not there that day, but I am. My spirit is always there with her.
It has taken me a long time to come to accept the events of 2014. I am still sometimes in denial. What I've come to understand it takes more grit and determination to accept my body will eventually fail me and I will eventually die than it ever did to run miles or pump weights, give speeches or write 20 page essays. I accept this idea some days and some days I do not. I am a novice. I am learning how to live in the moment.
For everyone who has stared death in the face, there is not a medal made of enough gold, a trophy big enough. You may not have a stage. You may not have snapshots in magazines. Yet, it is you who has the courage children read about in fairy tales. Yet, your courage, your resilience, your determination is real. It is what makes legends.
I honor you.
I push up into a sitting position, reclining against a pile of pillows wedged behind me. Brock has already turned on CNN and he pads into the room, emerging like a shadow, hands laden with two cups of steaming coffee.
"Is she on again?"
The "she" he is referring to is a 37 year old woman who's lifelong dream has been to swim a distance in the Atlantic Ocean that has never been done before. For weeks the news covered the pending journey. This woman had faced a series of setbacks and she'd gritted her teeth, settled in for the long haul, dauntlessly clamoring, refusing to accept defeat. Against all odds, she'd determined to take the risk for this dream and here she was, the culmination of a life's work coming to fruition.
"I think so. She was supposed to have started swimming yesterday I thought." He hands me the coffee and I sip, a steady sigh of steam rising from the surface.
I would not admit it aloud, thinking it is rather cheesy, but I have been silently cheering for this woman, hoping for her success. When the news covered her life's story last week, building audience anticipation for the event, I viewed quietly with the kids and Brock until finally I left the room, tears slipping, and wept alone in the bathroom. Perhaps it was being menopausal that resulted in my behavior, or perhaps my own personal journey through the fire of a hell I didn't know I would be forced to endure. I pray for her success as though my own is incumbent upon it.
There is a sudden cheering on the tv but not a joyful cheer. The surge of noise is a mournful sound. A sound that means "Please, God, no. Don't let it be true." My coffee is almost to my mouth when I hear it and it jolts me so I spill it on my lap, burning into my belly.
And yet I am not even thinking about the burning because on the tv I am watching her swimming. But not for long. Nature has a way of becoming an unexpected guest: a wave so large emerges from the bowels of the ocean that even a seasoned surfboarder would have taken flight. The cameras are on her and then they are not. She is swallowed in one breath by the ocean.
But the cameramen came prepared, with sophisticated underwater equipment. The picture on the tv shows her being flung around, tossed like a pebble, pushed deeper. The sound is a gurgling like too much water being drained from a bathtub. The sound is an echoing reminding me of when I was a child and I would stay underwater in the tub, just my ears, with the water framing my face, and hear the bubbles, the voices, the rushing faucet smashing water.
The camera's light shines on her as she twists and turns. She casts a white glow. An incandescent bulb. She is too deep now. It's been too long. My heart beats hard. Then darkness. The camera malfunctions.
I feel her story though. I know what is happening. She is consumed by the water. It slowly lifts her up now, toward the surface. I can feel her weightlessness, how the water caresses her, thrusting her higher, spitting her out.
She is not afraid. She is not anything. She feels the same calm she has felt only during meditation.
It feels good to let the ocean smash her will, bend her to its own. It feels good to know something bigger than her is enveloping her, part of her and yet very separate. She is pushed one final time forward and then stillness.
Her story is not over. I still see her. Not her face. I have never seen her face. Not all these weeks on television. Never her face. She is facedown on the surface, hair fanning out like weeds, wild, willowy. My view is from under the ocean. It is dark down here but beyond her, the surface. I can see the light. I am moving slowly toward her. She is blackness.
Her hands perpetrate the slow movement of a shy hello, bobbing with the undulation of the waves. Her hair crowds her face but I am close to her now. So close. I know she is dead. I feel her death. It surrounds her. It reminds me of when I was a child playing at the beach and my sisters dug a hole, burying everything from the neck down. Death has swaddled her like a newborn baby wrapped into the cocoon blanket by his mother.
I am close enough now. I gingerly reach toward her hair face. A strange glow behind her I know is just the sun, the sky, the other side, merely inches away. The water is velvet between my fingers as I brush back her hair revealing her face.
I stare at her. It is impossible.
The hair fanned out. The arms askew.
The death face is my own. She is me. We are the same.
Afterward:
This is the dream I awoke from Wednesday morning. It was 3 am. I woke, startled and began to weep quietly. I was still tangled in the dream and tangled in sleepiness and logic was not fully upon me but I knew this dream is a sign. I reached for Brock in the dark and rested my face against his back, letting the dream subside. I drifted back into sleep for an hour and when I woke to take my levothyroxine as I do every day since cancer destroyed a part of me; when I do, the dream reemerge and I can't go back to sleep. I spend an hour in the darkness breaking it apart until eventually I come to understand its meaning.
There was a time only one short year ago when all my life's ambitions were arranged like art in a gallery. I was amazed at the power of my body. Proud at the determination I displayed as I committed myself to more reps, just one more set, another mile, just ten more pounds on that lift. I thought I had it all figured out. It was a puzzle and all of my pieces were placed. I was that close to seeing the finish line.
But you are never allowed to know when it will be taken away from you. You never know when the wings you are given will lift you up so high that you will be among Angels.
I saw for a moment the death face. Just for a while I experienced how it felt to think it would be the end. It was a moment that was too long and too intense. It was a moment that was many moments and the one I remember best is this:
I am laying on the couch again. I am due for surgery in just a few days. It is four o'clock in the afternoon. I am watching my daughter Madeline. She is laying on the floor reading "The Heroes of Olympus". She is ten. Her blonde hair cascades down her back. She is on her stomach and her legs are bent at the knee, feet in the air, kicking slightly back and forth.
.I imagine the moments in her life that I may not ever witness. I see her at her 6th grade graduation and she is still my baby faced girl, slowly emerging into adulthood. Her first junior high dance where she stands in a crowd of her friends and giggles about the boy she is crushing on. Her first solo violin performance in the high school orchestra. Another dance recital. Another birthday. Now she is 16. She plays soccer and scores three goals in one game. She dresses for prom without me, but she thinks of me as she looks at herself in the mirror, makeup, hair piled atop her head in blonde curls. I see her graduate at the top her class. Her dad is so proud. Her sister hugs her tight in the picture. She goes to college and meets the man she will marry. They honor me at the wedding. Her Tika, my sister, speaks on my behalf. She has her first baby. It is a girl. I am a grandma. I am not there that day, but I am. My spirit is always there with her.
It has taken me a long time to come to accept the events of 2014. I am still sometimes in denial. What I've come to understand it takes more grit and determination to accept my body will eventually fail me and I will eventually die than it ever did to run miles or pump weights, give speeches or write 20 page essays. I accept this idea some days and some days I do not. I am a novice. I am learning how to live in the moment.
For everyone who has stared death in the face, there is not a medal made of enough gold, a trophy big enough. You may not have a stage. You may not have snapshots in magazines. Yet, it is you who has the courage children read about in fairy tales. Yet, your courage, your resilience, your determination is real. It is what makes legends.
I honor you.
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