For Beydn.

The Aftermath.

Day 122

Five months.

 

Five months without you.

 

Being a stepmom is living with an absence in your life.  It's loving a child as your own when you don't yet know what that means..  It's wanting what's best for another human being when you aren't the one holding the reigns. And because you're not in control it means being angry for a lot of the time, because you feel all these irreconcilable emotions and anger is ultimately the way the whole mess of them will seep out.  It's being mother in spirit, in deed, in heart, never in title.  An absence.

And I am the stepmother to a dead kid.  The absence is inside my soul, and it's permanent.  It's pervasive. 

Does that mean I'm no longer a stepparent?  I don't know that you ever even thought of me that way. I was background noise. Sometimes scary. Made things happen. You never knew a life without me.  I fall back on that some days. 

Day 130- something?

It’s taken me this many days to find something to sort of write.  Almost five months.  I’ve started a few times.  I’ve written a few lines.  I’ve talked to myself.  I’ve talked to you; I hope you heard me.  I’ve felt too many things to narrow them into words.  Hurt and anger and complete misery and exhaustion.  Even a little jealousy. Especially jealousy. Jealous of anyone who got you every day.  Jealous of people who don’t feel this way. 

Jealous of you.  Because if there really is a heaven you’re having a great time.  Please, let there be a heaven.  I believe more in it right now than in God.  I believe more in the impossibility that you just disappeared into the ether than I do in the power of a prayer that didn’t save you. 

Because in those last moments, when everything I had prayed for was clearly not happening, that is what I begged- Please.  Please.  Let there be a heaven. 

I never was good at giving you back

Never.

And still, you died.  It was a sunny Saturday lunchtime, and we held onto you- hands, arms, feet, whatever our fingers could find.  And we let you die.  As much as we’ve ever let you do anything.  You will never have to know what that’s like.  I’m glad for that. The tiniest glimmer of a blessing in this illogical hell.  We stayed with you, wanting it to be over, wanting it to never end.  You died, and we lived through it.

You were born on a Friday, Beydn.  The weekend of a prom that I didn’t go to.  That’s how young we all were.  The weekend of Mother’s Day, your mommy’s perfect present.  Come Saturday the hospital was packed with half the world wanting to see you, to touch you.  Just like it was the Saturday you left it.  I can think of half a dozen people who were in the room when I was there that nearly summer evening.  Not one of them could get close enough.  And it was like that when you died.  If we could have crawled under your skin we would’ve.  We would have breathed for you, given you our lungs if we could.  It doesn’t make sense that nothing in this world of technology made that possible.  The ventilator isn’t actually doing anything.  How did I think that?  It doesn’t make any sense.  It doesn’t make any sense that we were there at all, there in that hospital room with you only ten years from the beginning.

I did not carry you in my body.  I can not speak for you mama because I didn’t grow you.  I will not speak for your daddy because I know his ache is worse than any words I have.  It’s not my place to speak for your stepdad; I didn’t get to see you with him every day.  But I will speak for myself, and there were a thousand things I thought I would get to talk to you about.  There were a thousand things I wanted to explain to the man you were becoming, boy with hands and feet as big as mine.  I thought you would outgrow us all- in a lot of ways.  Now I can only put down in black and white the part of me that belonged just to you, the part that become a parent without knowing one May day.  I will be 70 writing letters to a 10 year old boy.  I can do it until I die.  I did not carry you in my body, but I carried you.  In my arms.  In my heart.  I don’t see any reason to stop now.

So, when I say that I half expect to see you here again, or that I partly anticipated to take you home with us, whole and happy, even in the moment that you died, I don’t say these things because I’m crazy.  It’s just that they seem as possible as any of it.  Or more.  Just as possible as you having leukemia, more probable than your daddy’s shaky voice on the phone, way more feasible than a fungal infection I never even knew existed.  And when I say a part of me looks for you to come in the door any minute it’s not that I don’t remember the truth.  There's just a hope that won’t be still, a wish I’ll always have.  We were always waiting to see you; there's no way to erase it.  Not any more than there's a way to erase you.

There are a thousand images of you that I will never obliterate from my head.  I wish none of them were from that day. The day you died was beautiful.  I thought it would be rainy or stormy, that the outside would match my insides.  But the sun kept shining, the world kept moving along infinitesimally on its axis, and not long after noon we were left standing in the room where you had been. 

I remember saying to a nurse that I had to leave because that wasn’t you, the empty body in the bed, the one that had betrayed you.  She said ok.  Probably because what else could she say, and also, because she didn’t much care what I did.  I had not been a permanent fixture of your hospital stay.  She didn’t know our story.  Couldn’t guess it the way she could see yours and Daddy’s, or assume it like your mom’s. She just said ok.

And what was okay about anything that day? Or the four months before? Nothing.  Not a single thing.  I have been refusing to revisit it in words, but that’s a little like lying. Dancing around the words won’t make you be alive.  Not remembering in the telling won’t get rid of the movie in my head.

I live inside those minutes constantly, those seconds, the ones you used to leave us.  I remember asking why wouldn’t Jesus just take you, going from shaking to laughing and knowing there was nothing to laugh at.  Your eyes wouldn’t close and your lungs wouldn’t breathe and I had to believe that meant you were ready.  The Russian doctor, the one who had told Daddy a few weeks before that you were so strong because weaker boys would already have been in heaven, she had come by and said she was so so sorry.  And she had been crying when I myself couldn’t seem to shed a fully formed tear.  The air was dry and stiff.  Maybe that’s what shock tastes like.  Even though I’d had days to prepare, even though Daddy had warned me he didn’t think I could watch I realize now that I was in shock.  I have never wanted to come and go from the same spot so much in my entire life. And now I simultaneously want to ingrain and wipe away. 

I see you dead sometimes at night when I close my eyes to sleep.  It’s living that waters it down and keeps me from cracking. Because I also see you when your brother says a word, his pronunciation or cadence like yours at that age.  I see you when I comb your sister’s blonde hair, the shade that matched yours before the chemo stole it away. I see you when the baby gestures and I wonder how mannerisms can be inherited; she surely didn’t get to learn it from you. The only way she’ll ever know her oldest brother is from being called by your name to remind us you’re still alive, to remind us that we had 10 good years. It’s just that the good memories can’t outweigh the bad.  The bad is what took you away.

I’m sure we all remember it differently even though we saw the same thing. Daddy swears the tears on your cheek were yours.  I have to believe they weren’t.  If you were crying did you know you were leaving?  If you were crying why couldn’t we stop it?   Those tears fell from Daddy’s eyes while he was kissing your face.  Daddy says he can’t unthink the thought that they weren’t his, but if I do I’m drowning all over again.  That whole day felt like drowning.  The before and the after.  The during was a nightmare.  And I never thought we’d get home.  I wanted to burn the whole city to the ground. We couldn’t get out of Atlanta fast enough.  But the drowning made everything move slow.

I still just can not believe we have to go on living in this feeling for the rest of our lives.

Horrible heavy and a world without you.  All the interminable days of our lives. Interminable and short.

Life is so short.

Except for the long parts.

You know the parts I mean.  The ones where someone is being born or when you’re watching someone die.  The abnormal days, the ones where you know that when it’s over life will never be the same.

Every day of the time you were sick was one of those days. From the minute I heard Daddy scratchy on the other end of the phone line telling me that you were at the hospital. From the first to third time I made him repeat himself because it made no sense, this thing that he was saying. Beydn has Leukemia.  It sounded dirty. That’s the only word I have for it. Leukemia. How was it even possible? The world upended into nothing.

When you were little, 3 and 4 and even after your brother was born, you and I would stay up late when Daddy went to bed for work the next day. You’d pick out books to read and sit on the arm of the recliner while your brother nursed to sleep. It was the time I got to really be with you. You’d press your body up close on my arm to stay on your perch, and we’d read Berenstain Bears. Caleb would fall asleep, and we'd pretzel our way out of the chair to take him to bed. You'd brush teeth with Sponge Bob tooth paste. The other one makes your mouth burn; it was adult toothpaste in disguise.  And when it was time to sleep “Lay with me” you’d con.  And I would.  And you would talk.  This was before cancer, before too cool kid syndrome, before Kansas.  The summer you were 6 years old.

I can’t remember all the things you’d tell me, just about some of them.  About wanting a little dog. No, you already have a dog, dude.  About swimming.  You’re a fish.  About your brothers. You know how to take care of babies. And your mommy. You need to call her tomorrow.  And playing with Kayla at your Mimi’s. I know you’re ready to go back there. About Kevin joking and holding you up to the ceiling fan. No, the fan can't chop you up. About what you want to do as a grown up. Race cars. Doctor dolphins. You can do absolutely anything you decide.

Sometimes I wouldn’t be able to wait you out. I’d wake up at 3 am curled at your feet in a ball. But usually, eventually, maybe two hours later, you’d be asleep.  I would pull the blanket up to your ears, kiss your head  in the red glow of your spiderman lamp, and tell you how much I love you.  Then, because it always seemed wrong coming from just me, I would make the list.  And Daddy loves you. And Mommy loves you. And Kevin loves you. And Mimi. And Kayla. And your brothers. And all your grandparents. And Aunt Jeneatta and Uncle Noah.  All your aunts and uncles. You’re so lucky to have so many people who love you, Beydn.  And you’re so good. Everybody loves you, buddy. 

This is what I used to tell you on a normal day.

And it’s what I told you on your last.

Heavy

When will this tightness in my stomach subside?  There are seconds where I forget why I'm hurt, but my body doesn't.  My muscles stay tense, still waiting. For what?  The worst has happened and then some. The worst. 

I see other cancer families' posts about how they won't be doing Christmas this year.  They talk about the hell that Thanksgiving was to get through and how they can't do it without their babies.  We put up a tree, well four of them, and I cooked all day, and your brother and sisters were so excited to see the lights and touch the ornaments and then full on melt down because of exhaustion.  And I felt guilty.  But I won't take that away from them because at its strongest my pain is a warped creature. 

Where other parents, blood parents, parents who birthed kids and lived with them and made decisions can vocalize their hurt or anger or desperation it's good for me to keep my mouth shut.  If I explain one wound it will lead to another and then another and then circumstances I shouldn't talk about because you're gone, and there's no point. 

I wouldn't give my girls back for anything, but do you know my most perfect Christmas?  The one I got to play Santa with you.  You flew on a plane across the country and we picked you up and rode through Christmas lights on the way back home. You wore the horrid sweater I got you, the one your brother fits into now. It was the only early Christmas morning we ever had together.  Because usually your mom would keep you, and we would have gotten you Christmas Eve and Christmas night.  But this year you were ours, and I got to see your face when you saw your DS and your stocking and the gazillion other little nothing things you had asked for from Santa even though you weren't sure if you should believe.  Then we went to our new house in South Carolina and got a stomach bug where you and Daddy and I all threw up, wallowed, and felt awful leaving your 15 month old brother to wander the house in search of destruction.  That Christmas is my favorite because you belonged to us.  It was the singular Christmas where we were one family.  And I didn't know it would be. Just like I didn't know your last Christmas would be an unconscious one. Your last Christmas you didn't know what day it was.  Your last Christmas we didn't know you would never be home again. I thought we'd have a year to make it up to you.  I thought we'd have at least fifty of them.

I don't have the choice of canceling Christmas.  If I did I would cancel every single day.  I would lay in bed and cry until my body hurt, but I haven't been able to yet.  I have things to do, hearts to take care of that can't be broken any more than they already have. 

Your brother didn't say much about you being gone.  Not for 9 months.  He would talk about you, but not about you being dead.

And then something broke wide open in his little body, somewhere in there where I can't touch.  The first night it was the closest I've ever seen to a panic attack.  We were talking about the North Pole, about penguins and Santa and suddenly he turned white and wailed at me, "I don't want to die.  Because Beydn died. And I don't want to."

And what I heard was, "ANYBODY CAN DIE AT ANY TIME."

And what can I tell him?  Because they can.  They do.  And he will.  Just like me. And Daddy. And you.  But not for a long time.  That's what I told him.  That he won't die for a long, long time, and the thing about dying is that you will be waiting.  And it isn't something to be scared of because if Beydn can be strong enough to do it then we can to.  Some day.  Far, far away.  I hope.  But I don't promise because a promise like that would be a lie.

Anybody at anytime.  He already knows.  So I can't promise.

The next time we were watching a movie.  A sweet, happy Christmas movie.  And he looked over and said, like it had all just clicked, "Mommy, I think it's sad that Beydn died."

And he cried. For the first time.  He cried just for you.  Because, suddenly, nine months after he last saw you in the hospital, he realized he would never see you again.  He understood you weren't still at the hospital, and you weren't at your mom's or your Mimi's.  It became real to him that you are gone from our every sense of physical understanding.  It took nine months for him to accept that under his little brother ribs, but when he did it broke him.  He's like you that way.  You and Daddy.  He keeps the big things locked up.  Until he doesn't.  It just broke him.

We didn't have you like other families. We didn't get the luxury, and I'm sure the way we miss you is different.  But I'm also sure the way we miss you is just as scary.  It's all blind corners and broken angles.  We can't explain it.  We just feel it.  We taste it and swallow it.  We pull it out in the light for seconds at a time, then pack it back away just so we can keep on breathing.

It's growing inside of us.

If My Brain Would Ever Stop

The thoughts I have that I can't, don't, won't say out loud.

The hands we clung to.  The ones that were the only recognizable part on that last day in the hospital. The ones I forced to hold onto mine after that infuriating lost child episode at Disney.  The fingers I scrubbed dirt from, let knot my hair into a nest at the base of my neck as we fell asleep, helped paint cards, encouraged you to thieve icing with, kissed repeatedly in their tiny form when they pinched my skin too hard.  Those are dust.  Gone and yet still here. Burned.

I never thought too hard about the box that goes in the ground until that box wasn't you.  Or I did, but it passed.  I worried fleetingly that my grandma would be cold.  She needed that blanket she was always asking me to get her.  And the idea tugged at me that no one would be there to trim my grandpa's nails or that hair on his ears he was always telling me to cut off if I wasn't doing something in the next 5 minutes.  I've entertained some purely certifiable thoughts about dead people, but they're always the kind that resolve themselves in the asking.

 "I have to tell her about the baby."
"Except she isn't there to tell."

"I need to ask him what the name of that horse was he had in 1928."
"Nope.  Never gonna know the answer unless my memory spontaneously spits it out."

They come and go the way your brain processes that you're turning a door handle and, oops, the lock is fastened.

Some days I talk to the little box on Daddy's dresser.  Some days I pretend it doesn't exist.  Some days I want to take it and lay in bed, but I haven't yet. Profound self control. Half of you.  Probably some flakes of someone else.  I read that after cremation there's no way to gather all the ashes.  So, who do we have in our house that was in line before you?  And what people have taken a miniscule piece of you home for themselves?  And do they have it or did they scatter it?  Part with us, part with your mom.  Your Mimi asked for some, and Daddy gave it to her.  How could he not? She needs you too. But opening that bag almost killed us both.  Ash and white specks.  These hard white specks that I guess are bone.  And heavy.  So heavy and dense.  Just that almost half of you.  And there's more in other places, that I do and don't know about so, yes, you're nowhere and you're everywhere.  You're gone and infinitesimally existent.  And I'm standing in the kitchen while your brother asks for an ice cream cone, and thinking about the oxymoronic value of the whole thing. 

Things I can't, don't, want to say out loud.