Yesterday faithful friends came over to help pack in anticipation of the move, and I found the Red Stroller in the basement. It was a gift from Mike's parents when Frances was born and subsequently wheeled by me and Mike over countless miles. We navigated it over bumpy sidewalks, boosted it up and over the side of tall curbs, slid it through patches of slushy melting snow, lifted it together up porch steps and pushed it around gnarled roots. We cajoled and distracted babies into submitting to its black vinyl straps. We showed grandparents and friends how to kick the bottom just so, in order to coax it into the folded position. Its mesh fabric base held beer bottles that clinked cheerfully on our way to the neighbors' for tacos, and cantelopes and eggs on the long uphill walk home from market, and library books to return as we wended our slow way down S. Cherry Grove, chatting with neighbors and inevitably stashing a tricycle behind a bush when its rider tired and opted to walk. The Red Stroller transported all three children for at least two or three years apiece.
Now an unsettling spray of gray pinpoints of mold is spreading in its folded hood. Its original rider is a teenager. There will be no more babies; there's no reason to carry it into a new basement. It's time to say goodbye.
I saw the unexpected splash of faded red next to the trash bins out of my bathroom window while I brushed my teeth this morning and felt the heaviness of time passing settle over me like a leaden shawl.
It's strange to think that part of why I can experience the sadness of change like this is that Mike - who felt things so deeply, and had a real penchant for nostalgia - isn't here. A stroller going out with the trash is the kind of thing that would bring a tear to his eye if he happened to notice it in front of someone else's house. Someone he didn't even know. One of his most vivid childhood memories was the sight of another little girl en route to school who wobbled on her bike in such a way that her metal lunchbox flew open and a single perfect chocolate cupcake fell out, slowly yet insistently rolling right on down the street until it finally landed frosting-down in the gutter.
Oh, the poignancy of that lost cupcake! The look on the little girl's face! It was hers, hers to anticipate with pleasure all morning and to devour at lunch in front of all her envious friends, until a bump in the sidewalk intervened and she lost it all. Mike felt it slip through her fingers right along with her. It was so sad.
And so I would take on the steady, practical, present- and future-looking role at times of change, knowing how Mike would linger in the sadness of moves, new schools, growing children. I'd hold his hand and say, kindergarten will be amazing! Or, our new house is going to be beautiful, you'll see. Or, we don't know if this cancer will kill you, we can't know that, so let's try to enjoy the day that we do have, and hopefully tomorrow too.
Now he isn't here to protect me from my own feelings of sorrow, and my own desire to look back at what was. To really dig in to my memories, and take account of all we have lost. Thus unmoored, I stare out the window at our family's stroller while I still can, before the garbage truck rolls by in the darkness early tomorrow morning to take it away, along with so many other neglected pieces of other people's histories.
We went to a party on Saturday. A truly fun party, an annual outdoor neighborly fall party that stretches across backyards and typically features many friends, acquaintances, and people I don't know but would probably like if I did. I wanted to go because I wanted to feel like the old me - someone who enjoys the spark and fizz of a social gathering, the energy that registers with good conversation, deepening connection, and unexpected meetings. Someone who likes good food and drink, and the feeling of possibility that an evening-long unique community generates.
But I keep forgetting that I'm not the same person anymore. I'm me, but I'm me in winter. I'm me in mourning. It's so, so hard to be in the company of people who don't know that the most important thing about me is that Mike died. Or to be in mixed company, to be introduced by a friend who knows to a stranger who doesn't know. I feel dishonest if I don't somehow share that my husband died from the outset.
As in, you should know I am not someone who can keep up light banter for more than a minute or two. You should know I'm not really capable of surface-level interaction. If you want to talk, we're going to have to get down to business and it's not going to be easy. You'll apologize and feel flustered that you somehow "made" me talk about my grief, and I'll apologize that you innocently started with hi nice to meet you, how are you and ended moments later with this piece of raw, barely-guarded vulnerability.
I should wear a sign around my neck:
Grieving Widow
Cries Frequently, Brings up Loss, Has a Penchant for Dark Humor
Approach at Your Own Risk
Because really, some people would decline to engage in light chatter with me about the fall weather or the super delicious salad or the wild pack of adorable children hitting the dessert table with abandon if they knew, and I wouldn't blame them. Not everyone is comfortable with the pain I carry. I can see it in some people's eyes, an internal backing up, a little alarm system going off telling them to seek the nearest exit. I smell like danger, like the bad things that haven't happened to you but could. Don't get too close; you might somehow invite tragedy into your own life, or at the very least be asked to contend with the fragility of every precious person and thing. Keep your lunchbox lid on tight. Protect your cupcakes!
If I wore that sign, those people would know to give me a wide berth, and I would be spared the discomfort of sensing their flight.
Heck, I might avoid me in that sign. Some of us already have all we can manage for today.
So no. I don't have the springtime resiliency of the old me at a party. But I also don't have Mike. Just like I allowed him to really settle into his nostalgic feelings by providing some practical here-and-now balance, he allowed me to have another drink and enjoy a raucous conversation by keeping one eye on the door. My darling introvert. It was understood that I could go ahead and enjoy myself as long as I was attuned, as the evening wore on, to the moment when he was utterly maxed out and it was time to go. I could always feel Mike's eyes on me, and I confess I'd sometimes delay the moment I looked for him across the room to meet his and respond: yes, okay, I see you, I'll wrap this up in a few moments and get my coat. In desperate times he'd interrupt and do something socially graceful, like smile his handsome smile at my interlocutor and apologetically remind me that our babysitter had to get home by eleven. Oh yes. You're right. We'd better go.
When we first lived together in New York, at a sweet event for a new book my then-boss Dave wrote, I was chatting with various people and feeling very fizzy with all the excitement around him, enjoying my proximity to it all, feeling very grown up and yet feeling very young and full of potential. Mike was waiting patiently for me at the edge of the gathering. Finally I got my things and we walked out into the cool air, heading for the subway. Meagan, he said. You're an arm-toucher. I can't believe I fell in love with an arm-toucher.
It was true. I'd never noticed before. I definitely touch people's arms when I talk to them.
It was kind of like when I realized Mike was a passionate sports fan. Huh? You? I'm living with someone who yells at the TV?
We learn these things, and we somehow make new spaces, new allowances. There are negotiations. Ideally, it all shakes out into a mutually-beneficial albeit precarious balance.
I've been living inside of that dance since I was twenty years old. And now? Do I like parties without someone to tell me when it's time to go? Do I barely tolerate sports on TV when there is no one to watch? Do I resist crying over cupcakes, or do I sit down and sob?
It is winter, and snow covers all the paths. Oh, Mike. I cannot fathom what spring will bring.
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