Take A Deep Breath

As I deal with a home catastrophe involving a huge tree that fell on the house, I remind myself to...

 

You are what you love...

Dan

Steve was working a contract in Wisconsin when he met Dan's father. In the course of their time working together, Steve found out Dan was accepted to VCU/MCV for his doctorate. We immediately invited them to Richmond to visit the school and promised to give them a full tour of the city.

Guess we were good tour guides, because Dan decided to stay. Steve immediately announced that Dan would be at our house for every Packer game. This wasn't an invitation, it was a command. I lent a hand by looking at apartments for Dan while he went back home to pack for the move.

That first year, Dan did come over for every Packer game. We took him to the state fair, where Dan got to watch my New Yorker husband be amazed by livestock. (Yes, Steve, sheep actually say baaaaa.) We had Dan over for cookouts. We took him to the botanical gardens at Christmas to see the lights. We drove Dan to his first marathon. We drove like maniacs to as many of the stops along the marathon so we could scream our fool heads off as Dan ran by. We brought Dan back to our place after the marathon worried he wouldn't be able to climb the stairs to his apartment. We were, we came to realize through a series of events, surrogate parents. We called Dan our adopted college-aged son. And though he made us feel old when he expressed shock we could use the word "epic" just as appropriately as any hipster, we loved having him around.

Steve had a favorite story about Dan. And this version isn't purely Steve's language because we often told this story together, one interrupting the other to insert some piece of information. Here it is as we would tell it together:

Dan is the stereotypically nice, corn-fed, mid-westerner. Please and thank you are the words we most often heard come from his mouth those first few months. He wouldn't say "shit" if he had a mouthful. Always willing to help or lend a hand however he's able. Always a smile. Always up for anything.

One game-day Monday, Steve was working out of town. Dan came over to the house to watch the Packer game with me. I was on the phone with Steve as the game was starting. Steve started bragging about watching the game on a large, high-def, flat screen TV in his comfy hotel room with the air conditioner cranked to the max.

"Are you jealous" Steve asked Dan.

... pause ...

"I have your wife" replied Dan.

We were so floor by the unexpected change from wouldn't-say-shit-if-he-had-a-mouthful guy to clever retort guy, that we were still telling that story regularly when Steve died.

After Steve died, everything reversed. Dan made sure I was sitting in front of a TV for every Packer game. Dan invited me over for cookouts with his grad-school friends. Dan competed in a triathlon in Steve's memory and gave me the medal. Dan grubbed in my yard. Dan took me out to eat. Dan accompanied me to Christmas ballets, anniversary dinners, and Packer games in Washington DC in place of my husband. He kept me company when I wasn't fit company.

Which may be why I felt so genuinely happy and excited for Dan when he graduated a few weeks ago. He is an amazing man who picked up and moved cross country not knowing anyone, met an incredible group of friends, and with apparent ease, earned his doctorate. He bikes, he runs, he hula-hoops. I have yet to hear him say a bad word about anyone. I have, however, finally heard him say "shit" and I don't believe he actually means it when he says it.

Tonight was Dan's going away party. Dan is moving cross country, once again. Moving somewhere he doesn't know anyone, once again. This time he's starting his career. And I am, once again, genuinely happy and excited for him.

But as everyone was telling their favorite Dan memory, I kept quiet. Not because I don't have one, but because mine are so... oddly tainted by grief that I don't trust myself to speak without weeping for the kindness he's shown me. All the same, here are a few:

Sitting in the parking lot before the Packer / Redskins game, me drunker than I realized, watching the swooping dragonflies while wondering where they all came from. Then getting lost trying to find the car after the game because I was too drunk to pay attention and Dan was too preoccupied with keeping me on my feet on the way into the stadium.

Dying Dan's hair a bright turquoise and shaving it into a mohawk for the triathlon he ran in Steve's memory. He looked like he'd rubbed a smurf up and down the center of his head. It looked good on him.

Dan, quietly dogging me around as I drunkenly climb eight foot tall, cast iron fences in my dress and heels to read a monument on my wedding anniversary simply because I'm not ready to go home to that empty house yet.

Plastering half a pound of pink glitter on Dan's eyes for his "naughty school-girl" Halloween outfit. Then plastering another half pound all over his face. Dan's runner's legs look good in fishnet stockings, by the way.

Wandering around some small, hick, West Virgina town arguing that yes, that house with the sign out front saying it's a place to meet singles and an ATM neon light in the front window really IS a whore house.

Watching the world's worst Christmas play of "A Christmas Story" in the same small, hick, West Virgina town. And being able to pick out the town's hairdresser because he's the gay man in black leather pants, black leather vest, with a bright red button down shirt. The diamond earrings are what gave him away, though.

Dan and I have known each other longer without Steve than we've known each other with Steve. The relationship changed along the way. I don't know how I'd describe it now. Friends, I suppose. Though I don't feel I've the right to be named a friend as I haven't done much to hold up my end for the past two years. Maybe better is to state, one friend who is deeply indebted to the other. And while I am happy, excited, and thrilled for Dan and this new journey he's beginning, that didn't stop me from crying the entire drive home.

I will never be able to repay your kindness and support, Dan. But that won't stop me from trying. Good travels, my friend. I will miss you.

Memorial Tattoo

A good amount of the time that I spend thinking of Steve, I spend thinking about how I failed him. How I should have saved him. The little things he loved that I should have done for him more often. The big things I vetoed so we could save for a future we now won't have, that I should have enthusiastically agreed to do. A million ways to feel like a bad wife.

Steve would hate that I do this.

My number one head-shrinker tells me it's survivors guilt. Makes sense. I'm here, he's not, and there's no one in my head to argue with my own bad counsel.

I positively light up when someone tells me about how much he used to brag on me or how much he used to gush on his love for me. Leaves me with the warm and fuzzies for days. Those stories pull me out of my own cycling thoughts of failure and remind me - we had it good. He adored me as much as I adore him.

But those stories are few and far between. It just doesn't come up in conversation very often. So I decided to go and get my own reminder:



Those are his words, his signature, in his own handwriting. I pulled it from the bottom of the card he gave me on our six year wedding anniversary.



And now I can look down and remind myself - we had it good. We adored each other. Every day we woke up and choose each other all over again.

And all those bad thoughts I carry around in my head?

They can just fuck off.