Category Archives: Parenthood

Sunglasses

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Thank God I was wearing sunglasses so he couldn’t see my eyes well up with tears.

It started on our way home from seeing the Easter Bunny. Ethan was talking about Mike and his drinking.

And after every memory, he seemed to blame himself:

– I knew that beer wasn’t on the grocery list but when I said something, daddy told me to be quiet. If only I would have told you.

– There were only three ways I could wake him up: yell in his ear, poke him with something sharp, or slap his face. I prayed that he would stop drinking but he never did.

– He would forget to feed me. I used to wish he would be more like when I was three or four years old. You know, before he got mean.

– He used to spank me if I said anything about his drinking. Why did he do that to me? I probably should have just been quiet.

– I don’t know that I believe in wishes any more. If wishes came true, he would have stopped drinking.

– I wish daddy was alive so I can ask him why he kept drinking.

My heart was breaking. Was Ethan blaming himself? Six year olds should still believe in wishes and magic, but why would he if his never came true?

I reached into the backseat and grabbed his hand. I pulled over into a parking lot. “Look at me,” I commanded. “this is not your fault. There’s nothing about daddy’s drinking that is your fault or my fault. We couldn’t stop him no matter how hard we wished, or prayed, or dreamed. Daddy was an adult and he made bad decisions, but never ever ever think it was because of you or me or Lauren.”

“Ok,” he said in a little voice, his eyes started to tear up.

“I’m serious. Do not EVER blame yourself, baby boy.”

“Is it okay if I cry now?” he asked.

“Baby, it’s always okay to cry. This is sad and it’s okay.”

As he started to cry, I hid behind my glasses. Still holding his hand, I said, “I love you, Pumpkin Pie.”

“I know,” he said. “I love you, too.”

I took off my glasses and we cried together for a few minutes. Then I let go of his hand, turned around, and finished the drive home.

Lauren was sound asleep in her car seat the entire time, oblivious to the conversation. And (probably) oblivious to any memories – good or bad – of her dad.

Roadtrip

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The last time I drove south on I-94 , I was racing to Fort Wayne, my mom at my side and the kids in the back seat. I just wanted to get there, figure out what was going on, get it over with. I was racing, speeding. I was crying.

I went through an entire box of tissues on the drive.

Yesterday, I was driving south on I-94 to pick up my niece. I promised her years ago that I’d take her on a tour of her top college picks during her junior year. It was time.

Tunes were ready. A cold bottle of water sat in one cup holder. Change for the tolls clanged in the other cup holder. It wasn’t until I was rolling down the road that I realized I probably should have brought a hanky.

It’s just a road – a way to get from Point A to Point B. It’s a road I hope to travel often in the coming months – it’s the way to get to my alma mater, to visit friends in Indy, to get to Chicago.

I didn’t realize it also held that memory of driving to Fort Wayne to plan the funeral. It’s just a road. Except now it’s more than that.

Breakdown on the Playground

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Ethan had a major breakdown yesterday.

He was playing outside at Kids Klub, the after care program at school (don’t even get me started about the use of the “K”s and the lack of punctuation), when he lost it. Tears flowed. Fists balled up. And piercing screams came out of his little boy body.

The college-aged counselor supervising the playground had no idea what to do.

Luckily, on Thursdays, the program supervisor is at the school. She was able to pull Ethan aside, hug him, and comfort him.

Apparently, the cemetery set him off. When I first visited the school, I thought it was a little unsettling that the church cemetery butts up against the playground. You can’t miss the gigantic tombstones just off the rock wall or the huge monuments near the swings. The living and the dead play near one another at St. B.

Interestingly, he was crying about his grandpa more than his dad. He told Mrs. B that he was sad about his grandpa. Why did he have to die? Mentioning his dad was almost an afterthought of his grief. Kind of an “oh, yeah, and I’m sad about my daddy, too.”

Last night, after his shower, I held Ethan for a long time. We read parts of a grief book that my mom bought last week. Some parts don’t apply to our situation, but others seemed to resonate with him. Ethan asked why he didn’t have anything of his dad’s to remember him by – unlike the photos and hanky and keepsake box and some other small things that he has that belonged to his grandfather and that Ethan keeps near his bed.

The truth: I don’t really have anything of Mike’s anymore. Mike either took his stuff to his parent’s house (and I haven’t gotten anything back except two broken laptops – even though I asked for a few things specifically) or it’s in storage in St. Louis (which I can’t access until I’m officially named trustee of his “estate”). I started explaining that daddy didn’t live with us when he died, so there really isn’t anything of his around. Then I remembered the shirts.

When Mike came to get his clothes in September, he left behind three button-down shirts. I don’t know if he purposely left them or if he just didn’t notice them in the corner of the closet. But I have these three random shirts – a white dress shirt, a striped Ralph Lauren shirt that he never wore, and a casual shirt from his law school days. “Ethan,” I said, “how would you like one of daddy’s shirts?”

Ethan ran down the hall to my room. He picked the casual shirt and immediately he put it on. “Look how BIG this is!” he said. “It’s down to my ankles.”

He giggled as he struggled with the sleeves which practically drug on the ground. He wore the shirt around last night, during Lauren’s bath time and during story time. Then he took it off and placed it on top of his stuffed animals, next to his pillow. “I want to sleep with it here,” he said. “This is the stuff I cuddle.”

Heart. Broken.

Cardboard Box

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He stayed in my car for almost a month. Sitting there, on the front passenger floor, sometimes covered with a jacket to hide him from Ethan’s curiosity. I didn’t want the questions – or the tears.

Not that Ethan would ever know that contained within the 2’ x 2’ cardboard box were his father’s cremated remains.

Many times I got into the car and just stared at the brown box. My head flooded with questions, memories, and a rollercoaster of emotions:

  “How could you just die?”

  “Thanks for leaving me a widow and leaving your kids fatherless, you selfish son of a bitch.”

  “What the fuck am I supposed to do now?”

  “Really? It cost $31.30 to send human remains through USPS? And you don’t have to sign for it? WTF?!”

  “Wow! Our wedding song… remember the dance lessons we took? We were SO awesome on the dance floor that night…”

  “((sigh))”

But most often, I thought as I looked at the box, “I told you so.”

Since I discovered his drinking (and the lying and the hiding) in the summer of 2010, I must have told him a hundred times that alcohol would kill him. He never believed me. We fought about it, yelled about it, talked to counselors about it. He would get incredibly angry when I would say, “You’re going to die from alcoholism. We need to get you help.”

Eighteen months later, I would be right. The alcohol? It killed him. Distroyed his liver. Left him dead in his sleep on a random Wednesday night.

And, I know that he would be pissed about me being right about it.

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I don’t know why I left him in the car so long. Because I wanted a daily reminder of what was going on, even though I didn’t FEEL it like I thought I should? Because I didn’t know what else to do with him? To remind me to make internment arrangements in our college town? Because I was too lazy to drag the box inside?

Probably a little of all of that.

I finally took him out of the car and put him on a shelf in my closet when we left for a weekend trip. He wasn’t going to go with us, not as we made new memories as a family of three.