A Man In the Middle

A Man In the Middle



"Mothers are fonder than fathers of their children because they are more certain they are their own."



~ Aristotle



Shh…the neighbors will hear



Tonight I cried. I'm not depressed and yet I cried. There was no need for a drink or a pill to make it better. Crying doesn't always equal depression as some might think. I have been grieving for awhile now. I did eventually take the advice of my few friends and family that shared my devastaing secret and sought out someone to talk to, a costly therapist. Apparently there is no cure for grieving according to my professional. I'm okay with that. Crying seems like such a small sacrifice if it will alleviate the pain of the loss that I feel. So I anxiously await the few precious hours of darkness I’m granted each evening to embrace my grief, because my days are for the living.



Even one is too much



68,109 died as a result of the 2008 Chinese earthquake that took place on May 13th. I can't imagine what 68,000 of anything looks like, let alone the unfinished lives of so many unsuspecting innocent people. I recently had to help my young son count out a hundred Cheerios for his 100th day at school. It took a lot of time to count each Cheerio and place it in a bag a hundred times. It would be impossible to do it 68,109 times; therefore, my mind just can't wrap itself around a number so large. I wondered at the time why people in my circle weren't talking about China's tragedy as much as I was thinking about it.  Maybe it was too much for them to digest now that I think about it.

I remember looking through the endless photos that could be found on the Internet. One of the pictures showed an entire school of children crushed beneath rubble. I couldn't tear my eyes away from people holding onto 8" X 10" photos of their loved ones that were either lost or found dead. Ironically, it wasn't a need for the shock and awe that the pictures provided; it was the individuals moving in the eerily-still pictures I craved. I hungrily drank in every image. How was it that where there was no hope, yet people moved with a purpose? Their small frames starving, injured, grieving, lost, continued to move knowing that death surrounded them. Their homes and schools gone, but yet they moved. By the 2nd day, the next round of pictures showed make-shift, functioning schools for their children. They were attending school only 2 days after the earthquake.

On May 8, 2008, just 8 days before China's disaster, a woman's life was taken from her and it wasn't her fault. Just like the earthquake destroying land and lives, this event tore up a family and sent aftershocks to continue its rampage against those who never even knew the victim. Although the expectations of a tragedy such as this collect fervently, saturating the air with dread, no warning – nothing - could have prepared those who were left behind to survive this nightmare.

The mind wants to put things like this into a tidy little box with a nice bow on top. Unfortunately, it’s too bulky and spills over the edges. No matter how you push it in or shave off its edges it still wants to hang over the side in an ugly mess for all to see. You get one slippery part in and the other side slips out, never allowing it to be entirely concealed. Those viewing the box can only see enough to venture a guess as to what the disheveled mess is. Time heals everything and I'm sure the person who said it wasn't kidding, but it's hard to balance wishing for time to hurry and begin it’s healing without letting the special moments that need to be savored and frozen in time get lost in the process.



The call

As I'm arranging my daughter's figurines on her new shelf, the ones I carefully picked out and bought from a consignment shop, the phone rings. I don't want to be pulled from my thoughtfully placed assortment of memories. I don't want to step from the room that holds a darling canopy bed with pretty little white lights wrapped in ivy, draped above a bed adorned with a gently flowered quilt. It's just the right place for a little girl growing in a world that encourages skipping the in-between stages of girl to woman. She can keep one foot planted, and still grow at a steady pace in this room. A computer or cell phone won't be found, there's only space for her imagination, hopes and dreams here. But I have to leave. The phone beckons.

         It's not that I have one of those psychic abilities to know who is calling. It's just that no one ever calls. The person on the phone is returning my call.  I'm not dreading it really, I'm anxious to hear what she has to say, but they are only details. I already know the worst of it. The details are only bits of information that perpetuate the inevitable. Since my daughter was born there weren't any real surprises. Sometimes we watch movies that bleed into our real lives. We think if the character on T.V. can survive past the climax of the movie there is hope to change the character's destiny or in extreme cases, the world coming to an end. They can do it, why can't I? So details really don't matter when the path chosen is final. When you love someone you have to sit in the backseat of their car and let them drive. When they are heading for a wall you need to either hit it with them or jump out before you make contact with their fate. I need a writer from one of those movies to rewrite this ending.

The call. The call ends and my heart breaks once more. That I can't help. I relive it every day. I don't know if I want the pain to stop, because it's the only thing I have left of her. She says that it will take maybe two days to decide my daughter's fate. 2 days? How can I walk into the room and walk out knowing that I possibly won't see my daughter again, or at the very least, for a very long time? The consequence that my daughter will receive will leave a wound in my heart that won't ever heal, while maybe, hopefully, beginning the healing process for many. Not even a sliver, a moment, or thought as to what I ought to do.



A man in the middle

I put the radio on in my car to stop the constant flow of thoughts in my already unsettled mind.  It doesn’t stop.  The song on the radio drags me back 12 years ago to a time that I knew Fred. Fred was spectacular. I think I would describe him as a man in the middle. Meaning he wasn't a short man who made up for his lack of height with an extremely witty or overbearing presence. He definitely wasn’t a tall man. Tall men have a sense of power due to their height. It always seems to me a man over six feet doesn't need to talk at all to prove himself. He needs only put on that power suit and he owns it. Fred was more the type that, well, couldn't be stereotyped at all because it would be too hard to imprint his image to your mind due to his underwhelming characteristics. So I will need to describe him to the best of my ability. He was about five feet, eight inches tall without his cowboy boots that he always wore with his business casual wear. He never could catch you by surprise due to the resonating clicking sound his boots would create echoing down the halls of our shared workplace. His hair was thick, well trimmed, but didn't seem to fit his small face. He was extremely nervous. When sitting in your presence he would either verbally apologize for taking your time or he would have the need to keep moving in a way that made you think he was ready to bolt for the door at any notice of boredom by his listener. His only confident words were about his wife and family. Why he would befriend a 24 year old blonde and why I would befriend him is inconceivable, but it happened. I didn't like him because I pitied him or his lack of social ability, I genuinely liked him. We could have been brother and sister in another life. He felt the need to protect me because of my abusive past and I felt the need to do the same for him due to his. He didn't leave my favorite chocolate bar on my desk with a note that said "You can do it!" or "You are special" because he had an ulterior motive. At the time men didn't interact with me because they saw something on the inside. He saw something in me that I didn't. I eventually started to believe him.

Fred shared my joy of having given birth to my 3rd little girl, despite Fred and his wife longing to have their own little girl at the time. They went as far as to apply for an adoption.  Being the friend that Fred was, he and his wife volunteered to take care of my infant daughter since I found myself without childcare. Fred would come home for lunch just to sit with my daughter and his wife. They did this while waiting and anticipating the call they knew would come any day letting them know that there was a child available to be adopted.  This was never to happen, and the last day that I saw Fred alive was on 9/17/96. He was walking his little dog down the street waving to me as I drove to his house to drop my daughter off. In the time it took to get to my office, turn on my computer and look at the day's agenda my phone was ringing. The main office at my work took a call from the state police saying that I needed to pick my daughter up because my babysitter's husband was killed in a car accident.

I arrived at the house as the state police were informing his wife of the accident. As soon as I entered the room I found myself wrapping myself around what felt like a rag doll and I remember thinking if I let her go she will fall to the floor in a heap.  I don't really remember images, only sounds. I once watched a National Geographic special where the women in the village seemed to moan and chant in unison as a way of expressing their grief.  At the time it seemed so distant from my life, something you would only expect from some exotic uncivilized culture. This time I was hearing it and it was coming from Fred’s wife and me. Just like you would see in the movies, the room seemed to bend, take on different shapes. I kept thinking this wasn't real.

I’m not sure how I met Fred's mom because it was all a blur, but I know with all my being, that she was the cause of Fred's noncommittal presence in a room. She spoke about his death as an inconvenience to her schedule. I imagined being teleported back to my childhood and I was sitting across from my own disinterested mother.  The same mother who walked out of a courtroom leaving 5 stunned children instead of answering when the judge asked her whether she was ready to take back the responsibilities of myself, the second to the oldest, and my 4 brothers. If I had the opportunity, I never questioned her about her choice to leave us that day. When she communicated with me, my focus was on her gift of a call or the occasional greeting card that would arrive a week or two too late.  I was afraid to lose what little of a mother I had to upset her with my inquiries or confrontations. This was my opportunity for vindication, I could have protected and stood up for Fred, my brother, I didn’t. I let his mother’s comments go and fly through the air without their intended victim being available.  Just like that, Fred left my life.



What’s love got to do with it?

When I visualize my legacy up to this moment I picture a person standing next to a table that holds a pile of stick pins and writing materials. Also on the table is a sign that says "Please share your opinion of me and feel free to stick it anywhere on my body you please." Some of the previous opinions are strewn about my feet, falling as they may, the words are not visible on my body any longer, but the wounds from the many punctures are painfully noticeable. And despite the pain, I invite more to stand in line to begin their assault.  A person with such a legacy shouldn’t have the responsibility of being the strong one.

At a young age when most children were running and jumping without much of a problem, Fred wasn't. According to him, he had a balance problem as a young child. I'm not really sure what that looked like for Fred, but apparently it was a big deal at the time. The doctor felt that since Fred skipped the crawling stage and went right to walking as a baby he didn't learn important motor skills he needed now as an adult. The doc's solution was to have Fred return to the stage he missed and relearn to crawl. I could picture Fred crawling around the house as a child knowing he looked ridiculous, but yet wanting to please. It must have worked because I never noticed anything off about Fred except his nervous twitches.

I wanted to believe my daughter’s brain disease would be corrected if we could cure her problem - me.  I thought of Fred and thought she need only relearn to crawl. The harder I tried, the harder it was to fail.  My dad would tell me that loving her had the same likeness to loving a rattle snake.  You can love it, but you do so knowing it will strike. I actually believed I could love her enough so she wouldn’t want to.  I was wrong.  She wasn’t Fred.





Run, run, run away!

I have a dog. Just an ordinary dog. He's big and this might set him apart from other dogs. I mean really big, the bruises he has left on my legs by an occasional bump are proof of his size. But he still is like any other dog, just a dog. Today he is following me. Room to room to room. I think he knows something that I don't. He seems to sense it. I can only sense his presence that is bordering on being a nuisance.

I get on the treadmill. There he is to my right. Looking up at me. He isn't pleading with his eyes like one would think, but when he catches my eyes he looks away and then closes them. I can tell he's not sleeping. "Good try you ginormous oaf," I think to myself.

I choose my course on the treadmill, a mere 30 minutes. The picture on the screen looks like dots going up and down, I like the down part, those I think to myself mark little rest points.  I hadn’t run in 25 years before getting this treadmill. Well, I tried, but it always ended with me gasping and coughing like an old hag. But now I'm equipped with an inhaler and motivation. Not your typical motivation of losing that last 15 pounds or the doc saying "You need to exercise or die," this is some other pressing feeling, an urgency.

I start my course, slow and steady. The giant laying on the floor seems content. “Ok, I can do this”, I think to myself. The sun is shining in on me. First 2 minutes done and my speed is increasing. I manually increase it even more. I'm proud of myself for not just settling. I go to the next number and then the next. Now I'm running. My chest is beating harder. My brain wants to go somewhere I don't. My mind is moving in rhythm with my now fast moving steps. The dog looks up at me like he knows. I don't. I increase the speed to one higher. I want my feet to outrun my mind. I don't want to go there. I'm 15 minutes in and I feel that something is fighting inside my chest. I have nothing to do alone in that room with the big dog but think and I can't get away from it. She wants to come into my thoughts. I want to keep her out like everyone else.  I can feel eyes on me of those who expected me to fail, some don’t even exist anymore.  I try harder not to think of her. I'm running and running and I can only see her before me and my need to run intensifies. I want her here, in my arms. I don't care what she has done. I just want her to be whole and here with me. The tears are coming faster than my steps. It's time to cool down.

I feel hot, I feel angry. I feel that the shower is not going to wash this away. It's here to stay for awhile.  There are those who can forget that she was here and needed help, not pity. I can't forget. I won't. I'm pissed. I can't do this. I'm bumped by something large. It's big and it's black and soft and he is ok with me, so I cry.

The end?  There is no end. . .

I want to end my narrative with saying something  profound, unforgettable ,  I find I am unable to find the words because this isn’t  my ending to decide.  There is no comfort to be found when I can’t give back what was taken from someone else.  I can’t find peace with the acceptance of my daughter’s fate. I have to live between two opposing sides and between two completely different lives; in other words, my sentence is a living purgatory.  Similar to those days following Fred's death, this time is no different except this won’t only last a few days or months.  Words cannot describe the loss I feel, but for the loved ones who still need to live and deserve a mother, a friend, a wife.  I need to embrace hope.  If Fred's wispy existence made a difference, I will have to believe my daughter's will too.