Both are true
A stupid Netflix show taught me this –
That, yes, there were so many hard times –
But there were perfect times too.
I can remember those as well — why not hold both?
The time when you were around 10 or 11 and there was a winter night of shooting stars, we bundled up with coats hats mittens blankets and we lay on the deck and watched them together, Jamie was asleep inside, Dad was at hockey. And you said, you actually said, “what could be better than watching shooting stars with my mom?”
There was that Chinese fire drill (no one would ever call it that now) when we were on the way to a tournament and a long-ass train stopped us at the tracks, and we got out and ran around the car, you, me, Jamie, and the two other kids we stuffed into the car, and when we got back in the gates came down again and another long-ass train came from the OTHER direction and we did it again, running around the car the opposite way and laughing hilariously. The cars behind us thought we were nuts.
There was that terrible joke I told when we were at Dick’s Sporting Goods store and you laughed so hard you almost peed in your pants.
There was your fierce loyalty to me when I would get off the phone with my sister’s asshole husband who I was constantly fighting, defending why I wouldn’t cosign a loan he would make me have to pay back, why I couldn’t visit my sister…I would get off the phone practically hyperventilating and you would hug me as I was crying.
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There was the image of you staring out of the bus window when we were in Ecuador, you wouldn’t take your eyes away from the scenery, a trip you didn’t want to go on when you were 16, when you were really, really tough almost the whole trip, but that one section you were entranced and so amazed.
There was the time I visited you in prison, coming straight from picking up my sister’s ashes from the post office, and you came out in your orange prison garb, we had the one hug we were allowed, and you took one look at my face and asked me what was wrong. You noticed.
There was your face — indredulous, grateful, joyful — when I believed you, when I trusted you, and you had earned it.
There was the time you rented a helicopter to take us up to a glacier when I visited you in Alaska, it was wicked expensive, but you had been waiting for me to get there so we could do it together.
Yes, there are these and more.
Today I dedicate the sunshine glinting on the tomatoes ripening on the window sill to you.
The water that sparkled and lapped against the kayak on Lake St. Catherine yesterday.
The changing Autumn leaves that hurt my heart because the last time I saw you alive was here in Vermont at this time of year, I can’t see it without juxtaposing their beauty with the indescribable pain of losing you.
I miss you and I love you and I will hurt forever. And I thank you for all of the lovely moments and the joy you brought me. I thank you for missing you — because it keeps you near.
You see, my baby, no matter what, you are always a gift.
