fifty

 Dear love, 

Today would have been your fiftieth birthday, and I keep thinking about your fortieth birthday. You had such big plans for a weekend float with our canoe friends, but were thwarted by heavy rain and flooded rivers.

You were a sad moping monster after we made the call, so I made another call, and Amy & Clay dropped everything to come spend the day with us and Erin & David, grilling kebabs in the makeshift (and probably illegal) fire pit you dug behind Three Bananas Cottage in Lafayette while all of the children ran amok. It turned out to be a really good day for us in spite of epic rain and flooding across the state that week. We didn't know that would be the last of your birthdays we had together.

Today would have been your fiftieth birthday, and that means this is the tenth time the kids and I have marked the day without you. This is your tenth not-birthday, the tenth time we're remembering that your life stopped gathering more years, the tenth not-aging-ever-again-day. The tenth beginning of Family Grief Season. 

And we miss you so fucking much. 

Even though it's not your fault, even though you didn't choose to leave us, I have sometimes been really angry at you, which, even if it is irrational, is a totally normal part of grief. Angry over relatively minor things like the fact that even though I'm still doing all the laundry, I also now have to be in charge of the floors, which we agreed would never be my job. Last year, I finally decided to solve this problem with money and bought a robot vacuum. Erin named him Sweepnir, and he's the best cleaning buddy I've had since you. But also angry over bigger things like all the milestones and challenges I had to guide the kids through without you. The deal was supposed to be that I did the heavy lifting while they were babies and toddlers and you would do the heavy lifting in the teen years. But no. You weren't there. 

Mostly now, though, I'm just sad. Sad for you that you missed so much and sad for them that they didn't have you to guide them and to balance me out. You and I were a good team, and we would have kicked ass together at wrangling teenagers. You finally would have been able to use your full powers of snark! I'm bummed we all missed that.

The kids and I did okay, though. Our friends and family stepped up, and we were never truly alone. Brea & Chris and Steph & Dave and Jannine and Amy and Julie rallied immediately. Jill and Mel came for extended stays that year. Rachel & David helped me plant the grapes and adopted the chickens. John, Dave, and Tim helped me clean out the garage. Brian and H adopted the heavy machinery, including the fire truck. Erin made sure I finished my dissertation, and her David encouraged the children's wild, messy science experiments. Sasha and my mom helped me manage ballet and gymnastics. Everyone helped me sell the houses. Chris & Kendra helped me teach Sofia how to drive, while Chris helped Anna learn to be a bike mechanic and an activist. And Chris and Jim and Jeff and Charlie have sized up the boyfriends the girls brought home and been there with hugs as needed. 

You've missed so much in ten years! You've missed broken bones and high school and first jobs and first dates and graduation and moving to college and fender benders and piercings and tattoos. You've missed so much gymnastics and ballet and diving and power lifting. (How did these two become such athletes with us for parents?) You've missed them becoming actually great musicians, which is a travesty because you listened to a lot of squeaky twinkles and didn't get the reward.

I have to tell you, though, our kids are so amazing. And I see so much of you in them. Anna approaches sewing like an engineer. She builds garments the way you built machines. And I can tell when she's thinking through a design because her hands move in the air, like yours did. Sofia can take anything apart. Her spatial intelligence has saved me so many times from packing for a road trip to moving furniture through tough spaces to identifying the source of the squeak in my spinning wheel. She's a crack shot with a shotgun, and she drinks coffee. They're bicycle-riding, scratch-cooking, campfire-loving, grease-monkey free spirits who are generous with their time and talents. They have the best parts of you.

Anna, Sofia, and I are not living the lives we would have lived if you had lived. I sold your house, and I've fallen out of touch with some of our friends. My life certainly looks nothing like we planned for us. It looks, actually, more like the life I might have lived if I hadn't married you. You would totally hate it! 

The lives Anna, Sofia, and I are living are, nonetheless, rich and full, and you're still in them because you live in the stories we tell. And we talk about you a lot, which is weird for the people who didn't know us before. For the kids and me and our friends, you're just you who happens to be dead, but for new people you're a bit of a shock. 

You dying was my worst fear. But you knew that, and you helped me prepare, so when it happened I had a plan. That was such a gift.  I still miss your presence--your laughter, your eyebrows, your hand on my shoulder, your body next to mine. I miss arguing with you and laughing with you and working together, even when it was hard. I miss us. I was a mess for a long time, but every year gets less bad. Well, every year until this one, actually, but 10 was always going to be a bitch, and here we are. 

As you requested, I had you cremated, but I didn't follow the rest of your instructions about the can of paint. We scattered some ashes under the magnolia tree and some on the swamp at your parent's house, but most of you is in the cemetery with your grandfather. Your dad marked your spot with a brass gear, and Sarah later had that embedded into a headstone. It's a shady, peaceful place, and settling you with him felt the most right.

The kids are planning to visit you there in June. I gave them directions like your dad would have--go to this intersection, keep driving past the cemetery, then drive around behind the strip mall, and keep going until you see the gate in the cemetery fence. I'm sure they'll find their way.

Much love, 

me

P. S. Look how beautiful they are!