Loving you makes me a better me.
Maybe Mike said it first. Something to that effect. He and I confessed to each other that night that something about our love seemed to bring forth the best in ourselves. Something we might not even have known was there before we met each other. We were so earnest, struggling to tell the truth, which in turn made us so vulnerable, which in turn made me at least feel as if I was participating in the kind of extreme sport that I would never in fact actually consider (base jumping? hangliding?) in which one is falling through the sky with no net on purpose.
Yesterday was Father's Day, which I tried to ignore because being a fatherless widow solo parenting her three bereaved fatherless children on Father's Day sucks. I was doing okay with it, I thought, but as the day wore on I felt more brittle, less capable of being the kind of mother I would like to be, and when we stumbled over to our dear friends' house after dinner to play a new game I collapsed, belly-up, onto their couch and tried to act totally fine (just tired, that's all!) which lasted for about ten seconds. As soon as my friend looked at me with concern I burst into tears.
Why? Because I can't be me and Mike for the kids. I know, it just is what it is. Accept it, right? But I am so sad for my children. They are missing out on so much. They are missing out on something I can't give them, and what I can give them seems so paltry sometimes.
I sobbed incoherently about my fears of not being good enough. Not good enough to keep up what Mike and I had started together with our children. It hurts to say it out loud.
I am, incidentally, blessed with very wonderful friends.
Today I think I understand better why I can feel so ill-equipped to give them what they need. We were onto something in that rushing-recklessly-through-the-air conversation twenty-one years ago. Mike brought forth something in me, something better. What was it exactly? Intellectual rigor, moral seriousness, laughter, curiosity, ambition, boldness. Stuff like that. Stuff that sounds so luxurious now. A newfound ability to name the truth, to put aside irony and politeness and falseness and just say what I really meant about the most important things: life, death, God, art, love. Not that it wasn't complicated between us; not that we always provided a clear pathway to facilitate each other's becoming with grace. Uh, no. I mean, sometimes, but that's really hard to do. He did call to certain parts of me though, parts I might have been uncertain about sharing before Mike, and let me know they were good.
So it's not just that my kids lost their papa. They lost the mama that their papa inspired and supported too. They lost the better me.
That sounds bad, I know. Worry not. I do value myself. I know I've gotten us through a lot of super hard stuff. (Whoop de damn doo, as Mike and I would say). But I can never be the person I was, the person Mike loved - imperfectly, humanly, completely.
I fear certain windows that he propped open in me are closing. That I will harden into something small, something less without Mike to challenge me, infuritate me, to never let me off the hook. That I will take the path of least resistance, conceding to late bedtimes and snack food encased in too much plastic and even worse chore-enforcement than ever before. Also swearing. So much swearing. Okay, actually, that stuff is already happening. What I really fear is that the passion and commitment with which Mike lived his life and parented his children will be diminished - and by me of all people! I don't know how to truly honor him without him here to invite forth the me that I need in order to do the day-to-day honoring.
That was what the tears were about at the end of the day yesterday. I am afraid the me I can give to my children is so much worse than me I could give them when Mike was alive. And that seems awful. It's bad enough to lose one parent. But when one dies, you necessarily lose a part - a way - of the other as well.
That said, I had a moment in ballet class today that I want to tell you about. I can only manage to make it to this class occasionally. It is wonderful, and it is humbling. I mean, wow. Really very extremely humbling. Wow. Bending my knees and pointing my toes turn out to be near-impossible feats. But I am finally following the teacher's sequences a bit better, and feeling a little more comfortable taking up space at the barre. Normally I stand along one side of the wall, a spot from which I can't see the mirror, which I am grateful for because the way doing barre work feels internally would suggest an external result that it would be best not to dwell upon. But anyway. Today I arrived a little late and grabbed the only spot left, in a different part of the room with excellent mirror access. I also stood at the end of a line of dancers, meaning there would be no one to watch in front of me when we turned to do the other side. Oh boy.
Here is the interesting part: it was okay. There was confusion, but not too much. And when we turned to face the barre I could not avoid seeing myself in the mirror. There I was, and I was dancing. Me! I can't explain the surprise I felt. All this time I thought I had been clumping around with my long flat feet and bowed legs, which is still true, but there was another part of the story I hadn't been able to see before today. I'm awkward and graceful. I'm soft and hard. I lose heart; I keep going. I grip the barre; I find my core. I begin again. All of it counts. I can dance.
