My mom and I decided to take a little trip together for her birthday in April last night. A trip! Together! It was a thrilling idea to put in motion, one that will also feel unreal until we are slamming the trunk shut on our packed bags. We will both be vaccinated by then and as cautious as ever. We will take a sharp inhale and remind ourselves that it's okay, and then put our toes into an old/new way of life that we've nearly forgotten how to live. I think it will be really good.
This past week two of my three children reclined in the orthodontist chair for an impossibly long time while braces were carefully and painstakingly applied to their teeth. Musical auditions were prepared. The cartwheel was perfected. I went to the dentist who told me I clench my teeth in my sleep. Another mock trial scrimmage was successfully completed. The dishwasher broke again, and the garbage disposal followed suit. The tv repair man came back for a second time and finally fixed it. There were in-school days, and at-home snow school days. I conducted about thirty therapy sessions from my dining room. Ramona ate one of my running shoes. On Wednesday after dropping off Gabriel at martial arts, I got out of the car and walked carefully around the mounds of dirty snow to get to the sidewalk with an ache in my chest, a tightness that takes me right back to the worst days when Mike was sick. Everything has been happening so fast.
And then last night, I dreamt I was driving a van as evening fell on mountain roads. The darkness became increasingly opaque, and there were no lights along the highway. I was driving a little too fast but couldn't seem to slow down. Suddenly I looked at the interior of the car and realized there were no lights within either, though the van continued to hurtle around curving roads that I could barely see. I couldn't tell how fast I was going, if there was a radio to turn on, or how much gas was left. All was utter darkness. I held my breath, knowing this couldn't end well.
Suddenly everything was bright and loud, and I knew another car had collided head on into us. A huge truck, with a shining grill approaching me at eye level. In the moment of impact time slowed down and down, and I turned to the passenger seat on my left (why? was I in England??) instinctively, desperately trying to shield Mike from whatever might fly through the windshield with my arms and hold him against the seat. I could see his illumined form in profile, thin limbs, short blond hair, in a favorite faded navy short-sleeved shirt, bumped and thrown about in slow motion, lifting off the seat into the air over and over. My arms moved too slowly, as if through molasses, unable to hold him and keep him safe.
An electric buzz resonated through my own bouncing body, I heard scraping metal and felt my eyes burning with the brightness of headlights and flying sparks. All I could think was please let him be okay, please let him escape this unharmed, please. But I knew I was helpless to stop it.
And then I woke suddenly, an hour before my alarm, heart racing, arms reaching across the empty bed. I opened my eyes, took in the darkened room, the closed blinds and basket of laundry on the floor, the sound of an eager neighbor already out shoveling the sidewalk, and reflected back the reality to myself to calm my panic: that was a dream. A nightmare.
I rolled onto my back, looked at the ceiling, put my hands on my chest and waited.
It came to me: you can't save him Meagan. He's already dead.
Oh. Yes, I know. I do know that - though my racing heart took a little while to catch up.
The truth is that in real life we four keep barreling through time, up and over mountain passes and around tricky curves. We keep growing and life keeps happening. Beatrice will turn eight in less than two weeks. One of the last times she saw Mike was on her fifth birthday, and so much has changed since then.
I can't save him, and I can't keep him with us. Every day we partake in this rich and challenging and unpredictable life is another day farther from the life we shared together, the treasure of being a family of five. The panic of my dream is the terror of losing him all over again, of losing him again and again and again, helpless to stop it, as we travel forward into the future - a future, it is worth pointing out, that beckons to us with special weekend trips, unfolding children who delight me anew at least once a day, old and new friends, a deepening of my therapy practice, novel experiences, a growing confidence in myself and my ability to drive this van full of people I love. It is good. And yet.
It scares me too.
