Big Arms Big issues

I measure my life in Saturdays. 

It’s been eight of them since you’ve been gone. 

There are the Saturdays before. 

The Saturday we woke up in Seattle, when my only concern was getting time with my niece before everyone else descended upon the house and took her from me. Fern and I were in fierce competition to cuddle the baby, and it wasn’t above me to booty bump a 9-year-old out of the way for more time holding her wriggly little body.  She took forever to wake up, and as we waited, I cranked my brother’s manual coffee grinder, complaining about how much work it was and why he couldn’t just get an electric, but smiled as I made a cup of coffee just for you. Fern and Leighton played on the floor, and I could see our future so clearly. So many more Saturdays of coffee and children and brightly colored singing toys that we pretended to hate. And love. So much love. 

There was the Saturday after when we went to your friend’s dad’s celebration of life. We huddled around their family pool, where I finally met so many of your friends, putting faces to the names I’d only heard in stories. One of the parents there told us he could see a special bond between Fern and me; you smiled and said yes, “This is my little family.” I knew then that you’d found what you’d been looking for in me, in us, and that I’d found what I was looking for, too, before I even knew I was looking for it. Who would have guessed I would ever crave being a wife and a mother.  I smiled back and said, “You hear that, Fern? You’re stuck with me now.”

She told me I was like a mom to her. I said you can think of it this way: You had one mom who loved you enough to have you and one who loves you enough to help raise you. She said that was a good way to look at it and then did a front flip into the pool. We sent her to bed exhausted that night. She’d asked us to “look” no less than 25 times throughout the day, and we didn’t have the heart to tell her that every jump she did looked the same as the last. We oooh’d and awed at each one, pretending it was the most spectacular dive we’d ever seen while laughing to ourselves as her limbs flung haphazardly through the air. 

There was the Saturday after that when I went paddle boarding with a friend. It rained on us the whole time. We sent you a picture of our misery, and you showed no sympathy, telling us to check the weather next time. God, we were happy, sailing around the lake and drinking a beer as the storm raged over us. We knew we were stupid and couldn’t stop laughing at ourselves. We so badly wanted our beautiful summer day. I came home and warmed up at your house, eating soup and interrupting your plans to clean the kitchen, forcing you to abandon your chores and get bread and cheese with me. I can’t remember if we ate in or out that night, and that bothers me; it seems like something I should remember since it was our second to last Saturday.  Sometimes, I wish I’d skipped paddle boarding so I could have spent those four hours with you instead. I thought we’d have so many more Saturdays. I didn’t realize it was my last Saturday night going to bed with you.

Then there was THE Saturday. The one that got split in two. Earlier that week, I sent you a calendar invite reserving Friday from 4 pm to Saturday at 4 pm for a day labeled “Carley & Jason’s favorite things.” I think of it as a blessing; I am glad we spent that final day chasing joy. We reveled in the outdoors, soaking in the sun, drinking coffee lazily by the living room window as light streamed in, floating around at the beach, and buying too many zucchinis at the Farmers Market. What a gift that final day was, 24 hours packed with everything we loved. Sometimes I think God knew what was coming and orchestrated your going away present, that perfect Saturday. Sometimes, I wonder if you’d still be alive if we hadn’t had that perfect day. Maybe it was too good, maybe we attracted the universe’s attention, and it couldn’t just let us be. We were too happy, and where’s the fun in that? I’m not sure the universe could stand seeing me with a happy ending; it never has before.  

Now, it has been eight Saturdays since THE Saturday. I want time to speed up. The first year is hard. That is 52 Saturdays. Since it’s already been eight, I have 44 left until maybe I’ll feel a little bit better. But I also know sometimes the second year is even harder, so I guess I really have 96 Saturdays until I don’t feel like I want to die every day. Until I don’t pray, “God take me too,” until this life is a little less sharp. Until I can get through just one hour without weeping. Until I am not utterly and totally disappointed when my eyes crack open in the morning, bringing with it the fresh realization that this is not, in fact, just a really bad dream.

The average life expectancy for a woman is 80 years. That means I have 2,496 more Saturdays before I can get to you.

That is too many Saturdays. 

In one more Saturday, we will plant a tree and spread your ashes. I’ll watch them fan out as they fall to the ground. Your precious, precious body will reabsorb back into the earth and nourish a little green pine as the cycle of life continues. I want to hold you tight, but instead of grasping onto your arms, waist, or anything solid, you’ll just slip through my fingers. There is nothing tangible left. I wish I could drink you in like the earth gets to. I am jealous of dirt. 

What will I do the Saturday after that? It’s blank on my calendar. A fresh 24 hours to fill with…something. Maybe a walk, perhaps some yoga, or I’ll meet a friend for coffee; maybe I’ll do anything and everything I can to avoid the fact that it will be my tenth Saturday without you.

The Saturdays before THE Saturday went so quickly, and the Saturdays after THE Saturday are going so slowly. The passage of time is like an accordion, folding up tightly and fast and expanding long and sluggish; it’s too drawn out. It’s disorientating; I can’t determine if it’s been fast or slow; I am trapped in a funhouse of mirrors; everything looks and feels wrong. Time is an illusion; the days last forever but are impossibly short; everything stretches ahead of me and then snaps back into place; I do nothing and everything within a single day. 

The clock ticks and ticks and ticks and yet…so many more Saturdays remain.