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Every year on July 22, I write to honor George, and I make the writing public. Every year Nova and I do something to remember him, like have grilled cheese and Sapporo beer, or have a special outing, or make art and bike and snuggle and dance. Every year feels beautiful and hard. Every year I am filled with gratitude and dread. There will never be a way to honor him enough. He has reached a place of infinite wonder and oneness and not my words, nor my actions, nor my thoughts, carry the right translation. The only thing that comes close are my tears. And when I look into the eyes of that girl of ours. Last night, on July 21, I sat across from Nova at dinner and thought about the dinner I’d had with George 8 years ago, our last dinner together. We’d gone out for burgers and we’d talked about the work he had left on his plate that night, how it would be a late night, but by this time tomorrow he’d be on paternity leave. This time tomorrow. It was a fantasy. And I wondered how it is that we choose to commemorate the day that someone leaves us instead of the day we last spent with them. I’d rather remember the happy day, the day of innocence and contentment. Maybe it would feel less dreadful. Maybe it would feel more luminous to celebrate his last day on Earth than the one that mysteriously landed him in the ER, with all of the heartache that ensued. This of course is a selfish idea, for George’s experience was vastly different from mine. Perhaps for him, returning to the infinite is all the reason to celebrate. Perhaps what we are honoring is not his life on Earth, but his transcendence. Then I looked at Nova, and said, “8 years ago today was the last day I spent with your dad.” And when I said that, while looking at this beautiful creature of ours, a new truth emerged. “They have been the best 8 years of my life.” She looked at me, and I looked at her, and we smiled a knowing smile. And in that spontaneous moment we glimpsed perfection in our nonconforming little family. There would be no Nova without George, and there would be no George without Nova. It is as though his dying made way for her living. And her living transforms his dying into enormous waves of awe and gratitude, and the physical manifestation of love. She is our love in motion. She is his spirit, animated in space and time. Her life honors him, and it is more than enough. 8 years ago, Nova and I became a team. 8 years ago, George empowered me to become a single mother, gifted Nova the virtues of courage and resilience, and set us out to create something beautiful out of something hard. They have been the most amazing, crushing, inspiring, heartbreaking, heart-opening, transformative years. They have been the best 8 years of my life.   He was my knight in shining armor.
When I saw him standing there, holding his bicycle, among a sea of other strangers just beyond the grassy knoll, I knew. He was the man I was waiting for. He was the man who was going to save me. I never would have admitted that I needed (or wanted) saving. I was 3 years widowed, and I was just fine. I had lost a husband, raised a toddler on my own through infancy, purchased my first home, and moved from California to Colorado to start again. I was doing well, making a life for us, and playing strong, on the outside. On the inside, I was lonely. I wanted companionship. I wanted to feel like a woman again. To be kissed, admired, held, loved. I wanted to not be alone. I wanted the dream of a family that hadn’t been fulfilled, and I wanted to feel that I deserved it. I wanted a different life.  “Tomorrow is a special day”, I say.
“What day is it?” she asks. “It’s the day that George became spirit.” “Oh yeah!” she flashes her big smile at me, and remembers. “July 22. That means it’s my birthday in 9 days.” A fact she will never forget. “It really is a special day,” she declares. “What are we going to do for him?” We begin to list off the possibilities.
 I took my mom to the hospital this morning.
It’s a familiar drive, one we’ve become accustomed to over the past year. We talk about the family, my dad, her doctor. We talk about how far she’s come, and how acupuncture has been pivotal in supporting her through the intensity of modern medicine. We talk about me opening a practice again someday. She says I can make a difference. I do not ask her if she is scared. It is not a question worth answering. Since the diagnosis last year -- Stage 4 Undifferentiated Pleomorphic Sarcoma -- her 77 year old body has endured two major surgeries, six weeks of radiation, six rounds of chemotherapy, experimental immunotherapy, multiple biopsies, and countless blood draws, CT scans, and MRIs. Today is what we hope will be the third and final surgery to remove a large mass in her right thigh, a mass that materialized five months ago out of nothingness, ghost cells that played silently on a seemingly clear MRI before building a spiral around her nerves and vessels. We can be thankful, at least, that they decided to say hello. To give her a chance to fight.  Last week, a woman I’d never met before came to my house, full of curiosity and wonder and pain. She was on a journey diving through other women’s stories, women who were mothers, women who were humbled and emboldened and exhausted and healing, and burning with truth. She was there with me to learn something, to spark something, to heal something -- to create a platform for mothers to share and to connect through our collective courage and vulnerability.
As I told her my story, of George and our love and my visions and his leaving, I was reminded. I was reminded of the grief and the suffering, the resistance and the surrender. I was reminded that there was a time when communities could come together to lift up the wounded. I was reminded that once upon a time, I was terrified of being a single mother, and I longed for an escape, but I stayed. I was reminded that there are many ways of escaping. That we can force our physical form to remain in place while our minds wander and our hearts flee. |
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