Big Arms Big issues

At least you’re young, they say. At least you weren’t married yet. At least you can find love again. At least. At least. At least. There is no at least that will make this better. The size of grief does not correspond with age, as if because I am 32 and not 72, it hurts precisely 40 years less. As if my love was immature, the kind of middle school crushes and doe-eyed little girls, something I’ll snap out of in a few weeks, there is plenty of time for a new man to be found because at least I am only 32. As if older widows get to grieve more seriously, bringing their decades of history with them as proof because they tell me, at least I am not 72.

Pain is not always measured by the number of wrinkles you wear. Did you know pain can exist on a fresh young face just as much as on a weathered one? Did you know that my hands, the ones that don’t yet bear swollen joints and arthritic knuckles, ache to hold his one more time, same as yours? That my eyes, yet unclouded by time, still search the horizon for his silhouette every day, hoping to find it coming home? I know you do the same. That my ring, smooth and polished, makes my heart drop and stomach sink in the same way your scratched and scarred band does. My feet, with soft skin and painted toes, pace the floors every night, asking the same question, “What am I going to do without him?” They bear the very weight as your cracked heels. We are not so different, you and I. 

You mourn the life you had, I mourn the life I never got. You mourn an end to a dream well lived; I mourn the dream that never got lived. Which is worse? 

I rock my niece to sleep; if I close my eyes just right, I can almost pretend it’s our baby, the baby boy, Isaiah, that Jason and I dreamed of having. I can nearly trick myself into thinking he will walk into the nursery to check on us, kiss my forehead, and stare in wonder at our child. I can picture this baby and Fern at Christmas, opening presents, fighting, laughing, loving. She wanted a sister so bad, but I told her that between the two of us, we didn’t need any more emotions in the house; her dad had his hands full with us already, and besides, he needed someone on his team. Three girls were too many; let’s even it out. I think she would have come around eventually and loved him like she loves all babies. We would have had a nice family, I am sure of it. My niece stirs and lets out a sigh, bringing me back. I start to cry. 

I think ahead to July 1, 2025. That was the date we’d decided to move out of the country. He wrote it in big, sprawling letters across my giant wall calendar. “Carley will move out of the country July 1, 2025”. He was so eager; I think he would have left without me. He said if he got there first he’d prepare a place for me, is he doing that now? We’d go to Costa Rica, lay down in the sand, drink out of fresh coconuts, and carve out a slice of life we could live with. A bit of heaven. A reward for all we’d gone through, this life we really wanted. We’d walk through the markets and breathe in the hot, humid air. I’d finally find a cook with a dish spicy enough to make my nose run and my eyes water. Our veins hummed with the excitement of it all, the rightness of this glorious idea, our big break. The night he passed, after it was all over and I finally got to lay down, in those early, terrible AM hours before the dawn came, I stared at the wall, and the only thought that came was, “Costa Rica, it’s gone.” Around and around my brain, it went. 

I go back through my journals; I’d always make him wait while I took notes, documenting our little talks and thoughts on what we could start together. Dreaming of our future was my favorite thing to do. I always had an agenda for us, no time to relax when there was a life to be planned, when so much potential lived between us, a breathing, untapped thing just waiting to burst open. There was the idea for a podcast where we’d use his therapy lens and my past experience to help entrepreneurs be healthier, how to help career-driven people slow down and invest in their marriages better, and how to avoid the mistakes I made in my first. There was the thought that we’d start a life group at church to help other blended families feel like they belong in a world that sometimes doesn’t recognize them. This one was my favorite; I was so proud of the family we’d created. For about five minutes, we thought we’d move to Greenville, South Carolina, to be with my friend, then I found us a new place to go, and Greenville flitted away.

There was the big plan, the one to take Wildflyer international, to revolutionize the coffee industry, to change the nonprofit world. I always liked to dream large, and he always loved to let me. I’d help him build his private practice; I thought he was the best therapist. It only made sense he struck out on his own, who wouldn’t want to spend an hour in his healing presence each week. We’d launch a blog called “Through The Eyes of a Fern” about traveling with children. For one summer, we were convinced we’d open a hostel in Thailand, and he’d make it a safe place for sober people. For a few weeks, we wanted to start the “homestead,” a retreat center for helpers who were burnt out. When our therapist asked him what he thought the purpose of our future was, he said to “make the world a better place together.” I really thought we would. Maybe we still could. His death has to mean something, right?  

The last week of September will be here soon, the week we were supposed to be at the cabin, our favorite spot on earth, besides Southeast Asia, of course. A week we looked forward to all year. The week we thought we’d elope. I had my eye on a dress, a simple white mermaid style, I assumed he’d wear that navy suit he spent too much money on for that first wedding we went to together, all those years ago, when we were just friends but also secretly sneaking kisses on the second floor of the reception hall. I always swooned when he wore blue. I’d wear my hair down, with maybe a flower tucked into it; he’d wear his back. We’d stand on the rocks where I first said “I love you” back in 2022. The spot where we sat in the sun, the waves lapping at our feet, breathing the fresh air. Everything sparkled; the water, his eyes, and the words just burst out of me of their own accord. It was like a spring of water gushing forth; I couldn’t hold them back. “I love you” I half shouted, clapping my hand over my mouth. He laughed and said, “I know.” He’d been saying the same to me for about six months, always ahead of me. I wish I’d said those words six months earlier so he had more time to know this simple truth. 

We thought we’d have Sue and Julie, our North Shore moms, be our witnesses and flower girls; the image made us giggle. Middle-aged women as flower girls? Why not? We’re in love; we don’t care! Then we’d go to the Angry Trout for dinner and celebrate under the stars. It would be perfect, simple, easy, intimate, completely, and totally “us.” I had to take that dress out of my saved shopping cart and release it into the wild for some other lucky bride. I needed to make room for the one I wore to his funeral. Both dresses were white, the similarities ended there. 

I picture two rocking chairs on a porch, somewhere green. I’m not sure where we would have ended up in our old age, but I know it would have been somewhere beautiful. I picture us holding hands; his hair is gray. Would he have kept it long, or perhaps it would have fallen out completely. I always hoped he wouldn’t go bald. Those thick, beautiful locks were one of my favorite things about him. I used to tease him and tell him if he lost them, I’d have to leave him.  I’m wrinkled and call myself old and ugly. He kisses my cheek and tells me I’m still beautiful. We look out over the life we built, the family we raised, the careers we accomplished, and the memories we shared; we think to ourselves, as the sun goes down, that we did well. 

We had so many lives to live. 

You mourn for your children, who lost their parent, and your arms hold them as they cry. I mourn for the child I never had; my arms are empty and ache. I cry over the mirage of a child I once thought would lie there. 

Your hands touch the photos tucked into your wedding album, and a smile plays over your face as you remember the music, the speeches, the uncle who got too drunk, and the friend who spilled that plate of chicken onto their bridesmaid dress. I hold the adventure scrapbook I got him for his birthday; it is empty; we didn’t have a chance to fill its pages. I picture what I thought our wedding would be, the pictures that would fill that book. I think they would have been beautiful. I won’t ever know.

You miss the house you bought together, that cute starter home, and the second one after that. You miss the excitement of your dreams coming true. I think of this grief like blowing bubbles, but instead of soapy water,  the bubbles are my dreams. One by one, they float away, and then POP, they disintegrate into the air. Their filmy residue shattered into little pieces, carried away by the wind. There will be no first home, no achievements together, no more building a future. I wonder if we would have made it to Costa Rica, I really think we would have. 

You grieve the past, I grieve the future. I wish I was 72 and losing him; you wish you were 32 and could have a fresh start. You may be jealous of my youth, but I envy your age. I’d give anything to be so many days closer to seeing him again. Is it better to look back and miss a life well-lived or look forward and miss a life never lived? 

Which is worse? 

These are two sides of the same sad coin. Perhaps it doesn’t matter. Perhaps we can meet in the middle and hold each other as our bodies, both new and old, crumble under the weight of a thousand sorrows. Perhaps grief is best left not compared; jealousy need not make a home here, in this house where neither of us wants to live.