Junior

 

Junior was a gift for my third birthday. I don't really remember what he looked like brand new though I do remember him being taller than me at the time. Today, he is a deflated teddy bear missing an eye, replacement nose crafted from a scrap of leopard print sock. He's stuffed with those pinhead styrofoam beads, the ones that cascade out of the tiniest hole and stick to everything. As a kid, I threw him against the wall when I was angry and sobbed into him more times than I'll ever be able to remember. For years he was being patched together almost monthly and there are threads in some version of brown in sloppy stitches on each extremity. 

He was a gift from my beloved Uncle Kevin and over the years he would tease me that Junior was still around. He drove me to college one year, Junior perched in the backseat, and marveled that his gift was so well-traveled. On occasion he'd ask how Junior was doing, and I'd reassure him that he was doing well, staying out of trouble. When I bought my first home, I took a picture on my front step with the one-eyed fellow and sent the picture to Kevin. Junior has outlived him by several years now. I sobbed into Junior when we found out Kevin had cancer. And years later, after my husband's shirt was suitably soaked by my tears, I cried into Junior when Kevin died. I cried into him when we had our first miscarriage and punched him hard enough to split a seam with our second loss. The bear has absorbed some grief. 

He's also my childhood bear, my keeper of secrets, the reliable comrade who propped me up when I was sick and where I rested my head on many a late night phone call with my best friend. After I married I had a real, live human to cry into, to rest against, and Junior saw fewer tears and cushioned fewer naps. Even more so, when I had children, the complete wildness of my days meant I'd often forget when I showered last, much less made the time to lean my head against Junior and read a book. If I'm honest, while I had hopes that my children might one day love him, I assumed that was an ill-placed hope. They'd have their own dear stuffed friends, their own once-new toys that should, appropriately, be tasked with weathering their own lives. I propped Junior in my son's bedroom corner and tasked him with oversight. 

But Junior has surprised me with a second life. For the last several months, he has laid, smashed and deflated as ever, on the floor by my son's bed. He is, once again, where I lay my head, but now it's for the purpose of singing Twinkle, Twinkle for the 75th time. I'm not sure when he moved over to that perfect spot. I'm sure my husband or I grabbed him one night as the nearest soft object upon which to lay our heads while we prayed for the toddler to close his eyes. And he has remained there, the perfect cushion at the end of a long day. 

A few nights ago, after books and blocks and lots of singing, I laid in the dark listening to my son breathe. My chest hitched, that hiccup of emotion you get when you feel too much too fast. My son was growing, his breath already sounding older than I was ready for, and my head rested on the bear Kevin gave me at his age. I breathed then like my boy breathes now, and at his size my arm wrapped around Kevin's impractical and perfect gift. Kevin, who my babies will not know this side of Heaven. It hurt. But it also radiated, vibrated with knowing. Knowing how delighted Kevin would be to see that ridiculous bear, still holding strong at 39, cushioning my head as I sang his great-nephew to sleep. 

"How's Junior doing these days?"

"He's doing well, staying out of trouble."

Castles on the Wall

The Castles hung in his den, which we rarely used. They hung in the room we awkwardly crowded into years ago, that first Thanksgiving after his diagnosis, when we weren't sure how much time we had but we worried the time we had was short. It was too formal a space for our typical Thanksgiving banter and debate and storytelling and worry. But it felt like the room we were supposed to be in.

If I ever noticed the Castles before he died, I don't remember that moment. They're a striking pair, beautifully framed, original paintings of castles to which we have no familial ties. Perhaps he mentioned them to me at some point, asked me if I'd ever been nearby, seen them in person. I'm not even sure if they still stand, perhaps the paintings themselves are pictures of ghosts, Cornwall must be bursting with not-important-enough-to-maintain castles.

We wandered the house after he died, knowing that every thing in its place would soon not be in its place any longer. Couldn't we just keep the house a bit longer, just let it rest, let it miss him? The half-hearted pointing and, "yeah, I guess that might look good in our second bedroom" rings so loud, achingly hollow. I don't want the damn end tables, I want him here. But I guess if they're just going to be sold to someone who doesn't know who they belonged to, hell, yes, I want them.  At least I know where those end tables sat, wooden bookends to the couch we all loved. I know the (not my style) lamps that sat on top of them. I know whose crossword puzzle was tossed there.

I have always been surrounded by him here.  When I bought the house he sent me gorgeous, impossible to fit anywhere mustard colored chairs, a blue ceramic lamp that now sits beside my couch, a mirror that probably cost more than our bed. On birthdays and when I got married he filled the house with pots, pans, kitchen gadgets. Even our collection of coffee mugs has his imprint. Knowing my husband's fascination with Waffle House, he gifted him with a holiday Waffle House coffee mug for Christmas. The thought in that mug still destroys me. I keep it tucked in the back of the cupboard so its presence doesn't wreck me unawares on a Tuesday.

But those things were deliberate gifts. He touched them, decided they were ours. The Castles are only here because I chose them. They are beautiful, and they watched us eat Thanksgiving  turkey, heard our prayers for healing (and for each of us, if not out loud, "if he can't be healed, Lord, at least give us more time than we deserve"). They're prettier than anything else we own on these walls, they're more sophisticated than we are, and they do not belong here.  They belong in his house, in the room we didn't use.  They should be hanging on those walls, an occasional conversation piece but largely forgotten, pictures of ghosts.

They will never be my Castles. They are simply more than I find myself desiring, they're lovelier, older, more impressive than I'd elect. And that makes sense, because they belonged to a man who was more than I deserved. More faithful, more generous, more loving, more kind. And while his choice in art was more classically lovely than I'd choose for myself, he also gifted us with Waffle House mugs, so the pretty inherent in all of his things holds little pretension. The Castles now hang just above our dining table. We don't have a room that goes unused because this home is 890 square feet. There is no den to tuck the prettiest of things, even the prettiest of things have to mingle with the hand-me-downs and Target clearance in this house. But they hang where we pray before supper. They hang where I sometimes work from home, laptop angled to the windows. They hang where we host friends, where we make decisions, where we lay out our passports before traveling. They hang where we live and their prettiness fits in well here, in our new Life Without Uncle Buck. It's a life that misses him, speaks to him, hears his "hey sweetheart" so damn clear, and it's a life that now has Castles on the wall.

A Roof

Several weeks ago I lost two people, my uncle and  my baby. The losses are married in my gut because they happened so closely in time, days apart.  It's hard to unwind where one pain ends and the other begins, if the tears are for one or both or all or everything. I remember saying to my mom at some point in the process of both losses, "it's too much." She agreed, of course, it is entirely too much. On their own, each loss would have felt unbearable, but the two together feel as if I've broken some internal meter for fortitude.

The last few weeks have blurred, smiles and laughter and warm meals with friends a welcome balm.  But I still feel bizarrely scooped out, like the strongest, worthiest, most-myself-est pieces have been removed for maintenance and I am just a roof, pulled taut over the remaining bits and pieces that make me a person.

I have many in my life who pray for me. My family, friends. And I would never dismiss the desire loved ones have to bring the heartaches of their dearest companions to God.  I'm thankful for prayer, for the messy attempt we humans make of offering comfort when comfort feels impossible, but the underlying faith necessary to believe in the helpfulness of prayer these days is pretty thin.  And that spiritual shakiness is what makes me ache for my uncle. No stranger to pain, especially over the last five years of his cancer struggle, he always ended his health updates with "The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away/Blessed be the name of the Lord." It could have been a casual email signature to some, but to him it was the greatest of truths.  I miss having that bone deep belief in my life, that smiling assurance that no depth of sorrow was without hope.

There wasn't anything to bury when we lost the baby. Too soon, too small, too fast. So we wrapped the petals of flowers given to us by friends and family in a remnant of my wedding gown and buried the hope of our babe at my husband's mom's grave. By that time, Uncle Buck had left us, too, and so the prayers I threw into the clouds were directed to him, not to God, "Show him around, Uncle Buck. Take care of him until I get there." Childish perhaps, but speaking to my uncle is easier than speaking to God these days, and so I do.  I hear his "darlin," his "sweetheart" when I cry and I hear the refrain he repeated throughout the course of his treatment, "The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away/Blessed be the name of the Lord." I read my poems to him and pretend he's with me in the car when I listen to political podcasts. On the days that it is difficult for me to believe in a good and loving God, I am thankful for my unshakable belief in the communion of saints. While God may feel far away, Uncle Buck does not, and someday perhaps I'll acknowledge that that's God, too.

I am a Roof Now, Empty and Protective

The hurt stretched, pulled thin against some immovable plane.

I picture ancient warrior women, all hands and sweep of hair, rolling out some mammoth hide and 

pulling it taut. 

That's what I am now, for now, 

my hurt some wet, bloody roof to our home. 

The sweat and crush of it has passed but the shade remains, 

the shade and the protection from all this rain.

We bury you (just petals really because you had nothing else to give us when you left)

beside your Granma, not far from a lake, 

That's where I am now, for now,

the loss of you so quick, your daddy dug a hole with a tiny stick.

I wonder if grass is cool or green or itchy, slim and sharp or soft and wide

In that other place you've bloomed without the protection of my animal hide.

The sun will dry this skin in pieces, patches, and the rain won't soak us through.

But you're still out there beneath a tree and I am still a mama with no baby

That's who I am now, for now,

Hands smoothing the stretch of me, pulled tight to the ground as music wafts from somewhere

I protect some part of you still, beneath this roof of flesh and blood

And you grow somewhere new, God's garden, God's flood

The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away.  Blessed be the name of the Lord.