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On this day in 1975, a few minutes past 11 a.m. in Pittsburgh, PA, George Schnakenberg III was born. This singular event, along with his departure exactly 38 years and 7 months later, would alter the lives of many in beautiful, profound, and heartbreaking ways. He would have been 47 years old today. Because 4+7=11, and 11x2=22, and today’s date is 12/22/22 (we all know how much George loved the numbers 11 + 22), it feels like an especially special birthday. But this year, I am not making a cake. Nova is making a cake. Nova, our girl who has somehow grown into a human who can research recipes and create shopping lists and follow step by step instructions is making her dad a decadent chocolate layer cake with pretzels, chocolate ganache, and peanut butter frosting - from scratch. All I get to do is grease the pans. Time is an amazing thing. As I look back on our year, I am flooded with gratitude, and I am flooded with loss. So many have left us this year. Every time I hear of another soul departed, the familiar weight of grief rushes to greet me. I remember those early days all too well. I wish there were words, a shortcut, a magic wand. A balm for the injustice. I am still learning about this thing called grief. While it may be universal, it is also deeply personal, and no two experiences will ever be the same. My grief for George is very different from my grief for my mom, and my grief for each of them over time takes on varying textures, colors, forms. I can’t say that it gets easier, because sometimes I feel that it gets more complex. The layers of who I am becoming in relationship to what they have become for me continue to morph and stretch me in ways I’m not always comfortable with. Their departure is a paradox, for they have not left me at all. We are constantly integrating. We are more connected than ever. There is one known fact, and I have held onto this since the moment I kissed his body goodbye. The insurmountable grief, the injustice, the anger, the exhaustion - these pale in comparison to the immeasurable blessings he has bestowed on my life. The simple gift of his life, and the lives of those lost, is enough to hold me through the darkest days. Happy Solstice + Happy 47th Birthday, George. We love you with everything.  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.   “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.
 One hour ago, my entire life changed. I took my girl to school, and came home alone. From this day forward we will live by the school year, and the school bell, and for the first time since her birth we will begin leading separate lives. I will not know what happens in her day. She will not know what happens in mine.
This feels monumental. I am shaking with exhilaration, a heart full of gratitude and pride, a mind in disbelief that this day has finally come. I no longer have a baby. I have a heart-strong, tough-minded, independent child who barely looked up from her artwork when I left her at school today, a girl whose joyful spirit would never lead you to believe that her first years were steeped in heartbreak. Somehow, we made it through. We made something beautiful out of something tragic. As I take in my surroundings at the kitchen table this morning, gazing through our living room to the park outside, the sun streaming through the windows, soon to disappear beneath the shadow of the moon, I am struck by the multitude of turns my life has taken since George left our earth. Little by little, the decisions I’ve made for my family have culminated in this moment, in this home, in this new beginning that is no longer filled with hope, but with certainty. I am where I want to be. We win. I was watching Nova play with a balloon this morning, throwing and batting and catching it while she laughed with delight, that pure expression of joy that children give out so effortlessly. And in that moment, I saw my premonition come to life.
Wow. This is it. My premonition was the moment I decided I wanted to have a child with George, in early 2012. We were sleeping in one morning, and I awoke first. I watched him sleep. He was so beautiful, so peaceful, and my heart was struck by how much I loved him. If anything ever happened to him, I would want his child, a piece of him, to be left with me. |
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