decrees of separation
Your mom called to wish me a happy birthday. She also needed some help on behalf of your widow R., who needs a copy of our divorce decree. I remember that day 15 years ago so well, when I received it in the mail. Such an innocuous envelope, thin & flimsy containing only a single sheet of paper, a checkmark next to “dissolution of union”, and the date.
Such a feeling in my stomach - how odd that words on a piece of paper can have such a physical impact. So it was done then - finally. We were separated for a long time before it became official. Are you going to file, you asked in a perfectly nice voice, maybe two years into the separation. By then you lived overseas, had started a new business. I’m not in any hurry, you assured me. I’m not trying to push or anything, just wondering.
I talked to my therapist about why I didn’t move faster. I didn’t know why. I still don’t know why. K. said, well, if it were my wife who sat me down and said I want to separate, I would be home every night by 5p. But that might not have saved us and anyway I think you were just thinking you were honoring my request, and giving me space. A space I stayed in for four years.
It wasn’t the most cheerful task to undertake on my birthday. Your mom thanked me for helping out, I guess the bureaucracy has been tough for R. to manage getting benefits for the kids. I wish I could do more. When Rebecca emailed me to thank me it came from your email which stopped my heart a little, seeing your name like that in my inbox of unread messages. I texted your mom that R. was all set, and that I still cry most every day. She said she knows, and that she keeps thinking of good memories and that helps. She says you suffered so much you actually said you were ready to go, uttered the words “I want to go” and my heart tried to escape and go find you when I read that, it’s stuck in my throat now, it is hard to breathe at the thought of you in that kind of pain, I am so sorry my dear.
Remember in H____ when your dad was staying with us, we went out for my birthday, I forget where1. I received a Christmas-themed sweatshirt from my parents, and later in bed you joked about its delightful tackyness and there was a little silence and I finally had to say well at least they remembered my birthday unlike some people. You sat up in bed like you were spring loaded, Oh my gosh I didn’t give you your present, it’s in the car! It was midnight, so technically still my birthday. Do you want me to go get it? you asked, and I just stared at you pretending not to know the reason you had to hide it in the trunk of your car was because I had a reputation as a fearsomely thorough searcher of gifts. But you were nice and didn’t mention this and off you went to the garage off the kitchen in your tighty whiteys and brought back a pretty suede vest.
I really love it, I said. In fact I had one exactly like it, which I took from the closet and held them up side by side and you said No wonder I knew you’d look good in it! and we laughed so hard we woke your dad upstairs. It is a funny memory, neither of us getting defensive or accusatory or sad or mad, just laughing like hyenas. To make up for it (which you didn’t need to) you got me a fancy gold necklace for Christmas and you cried when I cried after opening it, it was so extravagant and looked good with my power suits and showed me how proud you were of my success to give me something like that.
There are a lot of things about corporate work that are not so great, but I always loved it, and was good at it, in great part because you were so impressed with each new level I achieved. I was proud that you were proud of me. You were the smartest man I ever met, and your admiration always felt earned. I didn’t love myself very much until you loved me, your love made me feel worthy of love.
I went to the mountains and it snowed and snowed. Grief is like your internal landscape has entered a long winter, a place where I trek, as I do in life, deep into the woods where it is supernaturally quiet. The snow dampens all sound, it is just me and the trees heavy and white. It is good hard work breaking trail in this landscape, the powder is almost bottomless. As I labor along I feel such gratitude to have the ability to push through snow for miles and think how beautiful the world is and how indifferent that beauty, still here after you’re gone, still here after I’m gone.
Then I trek home, picking up the pace to arrive as darkness falls, before anyone starts to worry.
I remember now: it was that big TexMex place, on FM 1960. Your dad ordered fajitas with corn tortillas and they brought him flour tortillas and your dad told the server, who insisted that they were corn, and your dad, a mild-mannered food grade corn salesman of 30 years experience, was insistent when the manager came out to say sir these are corn. No they are not, your dad said. I’m sorry but you don’t know what you’re talking about. At the time I thought he should just drop it but now that I am about the age he is now, I can sympathize with his point of view: here he was, the customer, the order was wrong and these two people who can’t tell a corn from a flour tortilla AT A TEX MEX RESTAURANT NO LESS, kept insisting he was wrong. It was insulting to him, to be dismissed like that, by people who were demonstrating they didn’t know as much as him. I soothed him down and we ate way too many tortilla chips and salsa and had frozen margaritas and you had them bring a birthday chocolate dessert to me with a candle and we all were really glad when they didn’t sing to me.