Certainty Part II

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Certainty Part II (continued)

Around seven, we gather up my nieces and my son and I clean all the junk from my car and put it in the trunk. I fasten the youngest’s carseat into the back, straining to make sure it’s in tight enough, safe. The kids tumble into their seats, and we start home. I turn the music up but I can see JT in my rearview, singing along to Radioactive. He notices me noticing him, and he gets quiet.

“I love when you guys sing!” I tell them, hoping JT can get past the stage fright more easily than I have. The girls start singing to the music then, and JT happily joins them. I smile to myself with pride.

The song ends, and another starts. “Brave” by Sara Bareilles. I wish I had heard this song when I was a kid. I wish someone had told me I didn’t have to keep everything inside, that I could tell people my stories and that they would listen and they would understand and they would care. I turn the volume up more and tell the kids they need to hear this song. They all immediately get quiet and I know they’re listening intently. I wonder if they’ll understand the importance of the message, if they’ll even understand the message.

I want to see them be brave.

After a moment, from the corner of my eye, I see my oldest niece go very still. I glance over at her, and her brow is scrunched up, and her eyes look far away, and I know this look, this is the face of someone lost in the music, the lyrics. And then, quick, a smile, and her head starts bobbing along to the beat. Her smile stays, and I know. She gets it. Tears form in the corners of my eyes and I sense that I’ve done something good somehow.

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After dropping off the girls and making my way back home, JT and I walk up across the lawn. There are new neighbors moving in two doors down. I still haven’t officially met the pregnant wife of another new neighbor that moved in a few months ago. JT’s friends are outside playing. I know he wants to play with them. Sometimes when he’s home, there aren’t any kids to play with, they’re all busy, and he gets really sad.

JT runs over to greet his friends, and I go into our house. I’m relieved to finally be home, glad that I can relax after running around all day. It’s been a long day, a long week, but today, at the end of this busy day, I can finally breathe. I toss my keys and purse onto the table and grab a Yuengling from the fridge.

I spend my evening playing cards and having a few drinks with my neighbors while our children play, one of the last times it would happen this summer. I’m giddy in my newfound confidence, in love with life and all of the possibilities of the future. I’ve found my person.

I’m blissfully unaware that my certainty is unraveling a mere fifteen miles away.

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I keep waiting for it. The phone call. You know the one. You’ve given everything you can and no matter what you say, it’s misunderstood. You know the key is in there somewhere, he’ll find it and unlock the truth and once he sees, he’ll understand, and he’ll call. He will.

Won’t he?

But he’s scared, and so I wait. I can’t convince him that I’m not out to hurt him. He’s been hurt before, lied to, manipulated, abused, broken. Nothing I say can heal that. Nothing I say will be that magic word that clicks in his mind and opens up the reality of now for him. The more I say, the more pressure he feels. He needs to see for himself.

“I can only tell you the truth, I cannot make you believe, that’s up to you.” -- “Believe” by ED

I still feel lucky. I had a glimpse of what could be. The connection, the mutual admiration, the joy, the laughter. What it should be.

I blew it.

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When I was about four years old, my family lived in an apartment in an old house on High Street in Wadsworth. We had a neighbor a few houses down; she worked nights and slept during the day. She had this little dog that I loved to play with. Sometimes, she would let us take the dog out on his leash to play with him, and it was so much fun.

We’d knock on her door, and looking back, I feel a little bad for disturbing her when she was probably sleeping, but she’d open her door and let her dog out to play. We would take him for walks and chase him around. One day, we took him out in the yard in front of the houses. There were a couple other kids with me, but after awhile they ran back behind the houses, and left me hanging on to the little dog’s leash.

I’m not sure how it happened. One minute, we were having fun and playing, and the next, I was spinning around in circles with the dog, arms outstretched, leash pulled taught, around and around and around. The little dog was flying around me, the leash around his neck, around and around and around. I laughed and laughed; we were having so much fun!

A car driving down the street slowed and came to a stop.

“Hey! What are you doing to that dog?!”

I looked up and saw someone yelling out of the passenger side of the car. All I could think was that we’re having fun. Can’t you see we’re having fun? I was confused.

“Stop swinging that dog around, kid! What’s wrong with you?!”

I stopped immediately, but I still wasn’t sure what I did wrong. Luckily, the little dog was fine. We walked back around the houses, and I knocked on the lady’s door and she let her dog back inside.

I had been hurting that little dog. I know that now, and I’ve thought back to that incident many times since. I was hurting that little dog! I had no idea at the time that what I was doing was harmful, and I had no intention to hurt the dog. I thought I was making him happy by spinning him around, but instead all I was doing was strangling him.

I never told anyone.

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“Traditionally, we think of forgiveness as something we are to do when we see guilt in someone. … It’s our function to remember that there IS no guilt in anyone, because only love is real. It is our function to see through the illusion of guilt, to the innocence that lies beyond. ‘To forgive is merely to remember only the loving thoughts you gave in the past, and those that were given to you. All the rest must be forgotten.’” --- Marianne Williamson, from A Return to Love

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Maybe if we had met before all the damage was done.

Oh!

We did.

It wasn’t the right time. I was in another relationship, remember? You were going through a painful divorce.

Let’s pretend we met when I was in seventh grade, just beginning junior high. You’d come to my house with your notebook and we would sit out in the back under the crab apple tree and we would write. Every few minutes I would look up at you and watch as your busy hands scribbled down mysterious words. You could feel my eyes on you and you’d look up at me and our eyes would meet, briefly, and then I would shyly look back down at my own writing.

After a moment, I’d glance back to find you still watching me and I’d smile and blush and then you’d hear me giggle softly for the first time.

It would be in that moment that we would see into each other’s souls-- the complete connection we share-- the first glimpse of the beauty that flows endlessly just beneath the surface.

“Even if preceded by a long friendship, love happens in “one high bound”-- as though new sight has been given, and for the first time, lovers truly see each other. It may not be love at a literal first sight, but it is the sudden burst of love at the first insight of who that other person really is to you.” ----Dr. Craig Glickman, from Once Upon a Love Song

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Carolyn recently celebrated her 90th birthday. When I arrived the following day, a giant bouquet of yellow and white flowers sat on the coffee table accompanied by a gaggle of purple and yellow balloons. Her daughter Ann told me that those were her favorite colors. Carolyn sits in her chair with a pillow behind her head, her hands folded over the fleece leopard print blanket that is spread out over the sharp angles of her legs. Her head is tilted back against the white pillow and she’s staring off into nothingness. She doesn’t seem to notice as I sit down on the deep couch.

The couch is phenomenal. The couch was made for sprawling out with a good book and a glass of wine. The couch belongs in my home, it belongs to long naps and sleepless nights.

Alas, I settle into the far right corner and instead of napping, I turn my attention to Carolyn and try to imagine what could be going through her mind.

Carolyn has had alzheimer’s disease for about two years now, and back in May, she was involved in an automobile accident that has left her with a relentless sharp pain in her head. When she is staring off into space, lost in her thoughts, these are the good times. These are the times that the pain isn’t overwhelming her to the point of tears. Have you ever seen an old woman cry in pain? It tugs at your heart, pulling and twisting, and there’s almost nothing you can do to help.

As I’m sitting there, quietly studying her for signs of pain, Carolyn finally notices me. She doesn’t say anything, but her eyes briefly meet my own, look away, then back again. I ask about her birthday party the day before. She responds that it was nice, and then her eyes drift away again. There is no emotion in her words, no joy on her face.

Carolyn currently lives with her daughter and son in law, along with a man she refers to as her husband although they’ve never actually been married. Henry is also ninety years old, and his health is stellar for his age. He’s active, he reads the Plain Dealer every day, he still drives himself where he needs to go. He’s madly in love with Carolyn. He had a small patch of cancerous growth on his neck, but he had surgery a couple weeks ago to have it removed, and it’s healing very nicely.

Today is my last day with Carolyn, because she’s moving back into her former home with her other daughter, Rosette. When Carolyn was injured in the car accident, it was Rosette who was driving, and she was also injured and couldn’t care for her mother until she was well. This precipitated Carolyn’s move to Ann’s home, and thus my being hired to come in and care for her while Ann and her husband ran errands and gave themselves a break from the stress.

Henry is sitting in the chair next to Carolyn’s. He’s reading his newspaper and drinking coffee, trying not to notice the pain in his neck where he’d had surgery.

Carolyn turns toward Henry and says, “You might get tired of me.”

Henry can’t hear her, and continues reading his paper. Carolyn tries to get his attention, and finally he looks over at her. “What was that, honey?”

“You might get tired of me, Henry.”

“Tired of you? No! Oh, no, sweetheart,” he says as he stands up slowly and shuffles over in front of her. He kisses her lips and she leans her head back into the pillow as he sits back down.

“Believe me, if all those endearing young charms,

Which I gaze on so fondly today,

Were to change by tomorrow, and fleet in my arms,

Like fairy gifts fading away,

Thou wouldst still be ador’d,

as this moment thou art,

Let thy loveliness fade as it will,

And around the dear ruin,

each wish of my heart

Would entwine itself verdantly still.”

---Thomas Moore

On this last day together, Carolyn greets me with a rare smile and asks how I’m doing. I respond in kind, and reach down to pat her bony hands, and I notice how cold they are. I cover them with her blanket before I sit down opposite her on the phenomenal couch. Carolyn says something to Henry that he doesn’t really hear.

“Now Carolyn, if you’re going to yell at me all day, I’m going to go somewhere.”

She closes her eyes and sits quietly for a long time.

After awhile, she stands up and, gripping the handles of her walker, makes her way through the kitchen and down the hallway into the bathroom. Henry goes outside to sit on the back patio in the sun and fresh air. As soon as Carolyn returns, she asks where he’s gone. I point out the big double pane sliding glass doors, and she pushes her walker over to them.

Henry opens the door and takes her arm to help her through. He continues to support her as she steps slowly down one stair, and then sits on the step. A moment later I see Henry place a cushion underneath her.  He makes sure she’s comfortably situated before he sits next to her on the stone. He reaches over and rubs his hand around on her back, and she places her hand on his knee, leaning toward him.

The sliding glass door between us blocks all sound outside, but I can see them talking, their lips moving, forming into smiles. The sun is shining on them, and they are happy.

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