And Life Comes Back: A Wife's Story of Love, Loss, and Hope Reclaimed (22 page)

I can’t remember a time in my life when I have shown such a vested interest in the buds of springtime, but this season they have captured my heart. We had a full week of sunshine, kites, bike riding, and emerging freckles last week, and those sweet little buds thought it was safe to come out—nearly a full month before they usually do.

March can be deceiving in her lamb-like days, but April is statistically Colorado’s snowiest month. Sure enough, along came a blast of cold, frost, and snow. I found myself actually worrying about the lovely blossoms in all their courage and tenacity. I confess I’ve always found a strangeness in people who take responsibility for weather and nature. I’ve often thought it was wasted energy. What can you do about the rain, snow, or sunshine? Why worry your pretty little head about it? And yet here I was, opening my blinds first thing in the morning to see how they had fared. One day later, after a battle with blustering wind and an inch of snow, the spring flowers have kept their grip. They’ve held on tight.

Grief and recovery are much like springtime in Colorado. Spring doesn’t arrive overnight, but it seems to battle against winter for its place in the sun. Cold days show up unexpectedly, biting the noses off the flowers and hiding joy behind the clouds. Perhaps this is why I have cared so much about the flowers this year; there may be some projecting going on here. I see my own courage, tenacity, and fragility in those blossoms.

To welcome this new season, my home is undergoing a weight-loss
project: it’s time for the springtime cleansing. That means a sort-and-purge of all the little boy clothes that have become too snug, too short, too tight, or too little. As I sorted, I heard Robb in my head. A memory surfaced.

One day I was tempted to put Tucker’s outgrown underwear into Tyler’s drawer. I mean, why not? The undies are in fine shape, we can get another year out of these, and it’s not like I’m asking him to wear a dirty pair that his brother cast aside. Robb, careful with money and not prone to spending on needless things, nonetheless stopped me on that one.

“Tricia, promise me you’ll never give Tyler his brother’s hand-me-down underwear. Let’s buy him new ones. A man should never have to wear another man’s underwear.” I chucked the old undies in the trash and added “new undies” to the Target list.

Tyler, you have your daddy to thank for the new underwear. And FYI, kiddo, he called you a man. And you weren’t yet three years old.

Today I combed through the basement, enlisting the boys in the task. They were delighted by the honor since they call that half of the basement “The Secret Room.” It’s a plethora of treasures. Christmas lives in that room, stacked neatly against one wall. All my seasonal belongings, really. Apparently, I like wreaths.

In the most recent sort and purge, I encountered approximately forty-seven wicker baskets; Robb’s collection of 1980s Christian contemporary CDs; boxes and boxes (and boxes and boxes) of teaching materials, books, and learning centers; a dog crate; a full ensemble of ski sportswear; his and her rollerblades with matching kneepads and elbow pads; enough camping equipment to make you think we don’t
own a home; the puffy-fluffy crinoline slip I wore underneath my wedding dress; a Diaper Genie; a handbook on arms and weaponry that Robb was apparently secretly studying in his spare time; two roll-along totes filled to the gills with scrapbook supplies; and seating for thirty-one.

I collect chairs. I learned this about myself today.

Ruthlessly, I made bold decisions about what would stay, what needed to move on. The CDs left. The crinoline stayed. The Diaper Genie left. The chairs stayed. By these decisions you can deduce that everyone in my house is potty trained, I have little interest in Petra, I am not yet ready to part with the attire from my wedding, and it seems I’m planning to throw some rockin’, huge party where there could be nothing worse than a lack of seating.

Tucker was intensely helpful. He even helped me carry a mattress and box spring up the stairs. He made four dozen trips up and down those flights of stairs. Such a trooper, my right-hand man. Tyler busied himself blowing bubbles, building a train set, blowing up farty-party balloons, unrolling and unpacking his sleeping bag, and begging me to keep anything that held any memory of his younger days. His help was relative. I have to remind myself that they are almost-seven and just-turned-five. That’s a big window, a span that’s very different from four and six. Their skills, attention spans, and life perspectives are wildly different.

But there could be one other factor in play. Whose husband was it … let me see here … whose husband was it who woke up every blessed Saturday morning with a plan to plow his way through a to-do list? Whose husband was it who practiced efficiency and productivity as
hobbies? Whose husband was it who was gifted in serving, loved to get his hands dirty with a hard day’s work, and never could really get his wife on board with sweat, dirt, or dust? In such projects of manual labor, his wife was, at worst, missing in action and, at best, distracted by the rediscovery of old high school yearbooks. It’s entirely possible that Tyler’s preferences have nothing to do with his being technically a preschooler. It’s quite probable that he simply takes after me and my work ethic.
Good luck to you, Tuck. You have your hands full with both of us. Your dad sure did.

I’m also renovating the office that was once the nursery. When we first moved into this home, this room was the first one we changed. When I was about two weeks pregnant, we redecorated in a soft blue and yellow theme. I painted puffy clouds on the ceiling, making sure of good ventilation so we wouldn’t damage the baby’s growing neural system. It suited us well. It was Tucker’s room, then it was Tyler’s, until we sold the crib and bought bunk beds. Then the brothers became roommates down the hall.

Then what to do with this powder-blue and yellow room that suddenly was so whimsical it made me nauseous? It became The Office. Earth tones, greens and browns. I think the wall color is something akin to “butternut toast.” We transformed the room on a dime, borrowing tricks from the TV show
Trading Spaces.
The monstrous oak desk migrated in here. The changing table became a credenza. We made it work. A shared space for the two of us: the filer and the piler.

But now, though, what to do with this space? Now that it’s all mine.

I kept the earth tones. I kept the credenza. I added bookshelves. I
added a reading corner, complete with a small table, a cozy (red floral) chair, and a reading lamp. I took out the monstrous desk, and I replaced it with a streamlined workspace just big enough for my laptop, a picture frame, and a bud vase. With a daisy.

I knelt to the floor tonight, my face to the carpet. I pictured dozens of clips from the many scenes in this room. I rocked my babies when they were sick or well, sleepy or not. I wrestled a boy many a time into a clean pair of pants. I worshiped in here, silently or loudly, most often late at night. I have journaled here through whole books, one page at a time. I have danced in here alone, in praise; with my boys, in silliness; with my husband, in love.

I received the call from the coroner’s office in this room. I slipped away to this room many times on the day I became a
widow
—just to say that word to myself again and again. Tonight I dedicated this room once again. “God, may you fill this space. I give this to you, along with every word and thought that will come through this room. May words land on the page. May you receive the glory.”

Before we changed anything at all when we first moved in, Robb splattered “R loves T” on the biggest wall, in splashy blue paint. Beneath all these earth tones, there’s a love note written to me.

I believe I can work in this room. I believe I will write a book in this space.

Tyler found a roly-poly, one of those little black bugs that curls up into a ball. He found it as we were walking up the sidewalk to deposit Tucker in the line of kindergarten students. Incidentally, it wasn’t a
nature walk, yet there we were, caught up in investigation. Some of us are better at stopping to smell the roses and hold the bugs. One of us has to watch the clock. He let it crawl all over his hands as he tinkered along the sidewalk.

“Can I keep it?”

“No, buddy, you need to let it go before we get in the car.”

“Why?”

“Because he lives in the grass. You can’t take him from his home.”

“Why?”

“Well, I did that once. When I was four years old, I caught a caterpillar. A thick, black fuzzy one. I put him in a bowl with a couple of leaves and some grass, and I watched him all the time. He crawled all around until he didn’t anymore. He curled up at the bottom of the bowl, and he wouldn’t try anymore. Poppa told me the caterpillar had seen all he could see in the bowl, and he had learned everything he could learn. I kept him until he was sad to be mine, and then I needed to let him go. He belonged someplace bigger.”

“But I want to see a black, fuzzy caterpillar.”

“Sorry, kiddo. They don’t live where we are. They’re back east with the lightning bugs.”

“Hey, Mommy?”

“Yes?”

“Tell it again.”

“Mommy, are you crying?”

“Yes.”

“Did you start crying because you miss Daddy?”

“Yes, buddy. I think people are forgetting him. I want them to remember him.”

“I remember him.”

“Yeah, Mommy. I remember him too.”

“I’m so thankful you do, boys. You are a most wonderful gift to me.”

“Because we make you think of Daddy?”

“And because you remember him. And because you are you.”

“He had a mustache. And he played horsy with us.”

“And he died. I remember that too, Mommy. He died so a new baby could be born.”

“No, no, that’s not why he died. Babies are born all the time, but people don’t have to die for babies to be born. People die when it’s time, and babies are born when it’s time.”

“Why did he die, Mommy? He wasn’t even old.”

“I don’t know why, lovey.” I tell them the same words I have said every time they have asked. “He got sick really fast, and the doctors couldn’t help him. He lived all the days God gave him.”

“But can you tell me how? What happened?”

There it is. This day has come. Their cognition grows with each day, and with understanding comes questions. They seek to make sense of the incomprehensible. I watch them in the rearview mirror, and I tell them the whole story. They are patient when I pause to cry.

“Daddy didn’t have a spleen, and you need a spleen to fight infections. He didn’t have his, so when his body got the infection, it couldn’t fight for him. The good news is that you have a spleen,
though. So you don’t need to worry; your bodies can fight infection really well.”

“So, did Daddy’s fall out of him?”

“No, he was in an accident when he was fourteen. He was sledding down a hill, and he ran into a tree. His spleen broke apart inside him, and the doctors had to do surgery to take out all the pieces.”

“Why didn’t he turn his sled? I wish he had looked up and turned his sled instead of running into the tree. Because I’m in first grade now. I play football. He should be here.”

“I know, buddy. He should be here. But I really think he can see you. I really think God lets him watch.”

“Do you think he can see us right now, Mommy?”

“You know what? I really feel like he can.”

“I don’t know, Mommy. The windows in the van are dark. He might not be able to see through.”

“If God lets him watch us sometimes, then I’m sure nothing gets in his way. Not even tinted windows. I think he watches you sometimes, and I think he probably tells everyone in heaven about you. I think he says, ‘Look! That’s my boy Tucker, the quarterback! Watch—he’s about to throw the ball!’ And I think he says, ‘Look! That’s my boy Tyler. He’s an artist. Watch what he can make! Look! Those are my boys. Look how they love each other. Look how they love their mom. Look how they love God.’ I think he says those things to everybody in heaven.”

“Mommy, does his soul say those words since he left his body here?”

Oh, these questions… “Yes, baby. I believe that’s what happens.”