The Best 8 Years

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.