Flowers

I’ve been a mom for almost twelve years and I learned my very first lesson on the very first day of parenthood. It happens in an instant, and every single parent has had the exact same lesson. Some smiling nurse hands you an impossibly small human being with a furiously pounding heart the size of a lima bean and you realize that you have absolutely no clue what you’re doing. You are instantaneously stripped of every ounce of hubris which told you you’d be a fabulous parent and you are more terrified than you previously knew was possible. Who the heck were you trying to fool, anyway? Two years ago you were living off of Top Ramen in a dorm room and now you’re in charge of a child? It’s clear that you can barely take care of yourself and now you’re holding a living being that will actually die if you screw up.

Pardon my language, but your first thought as you hold that baby is, “HOLY. SHIT.” and not in some dewy-eyed, awestruck way. It’s more of a skydiving without a parachute kind of way.

The second lesson is pretty universal, too, and it happens almost as fast. You learn that your children will never stop surprising you. Sometimes that surprise is not entirely pleasant – for example, when your son tells the drive thru attendant that you’ve kidnapped him because you refused to buy him a milkshake. Sometimes they surprise you by the flawless use of a word like “paradoxical” in a sentence. Sometimes they surprise everyone by answering the door for the Uber Eats guy buck naked. Parenthood sort of robs you of the capacity for shock in some ways.

The night before last, Bean and I had to make a late night run for Boogie’s milk (moot, in Boogie-speak) and Dad wanted pineapple sherbet, so we went to Fred Meyer. I don’t shop there normally, but Mom does. The only time I’m ever in Fred Meyer is here in Coeur d’Alene and it’s with mom. We spend way too much time browsing the home decor and plan projects and drool over stuff we can’t afford. This is exactly what Bean and I did as well. We went through the garden center because mom’s flower planters out front are empty and I needed to remedy that. I found her favorites – nicotania, petunias, dianthus – in her signature purple. And I was doing ok, really. I wasn’t great, but I was holding my crap together until I was standing in the checkout line and a song mom and I used to sing together came across the sound system. It was just too much. I crumbled.

To her credit, the checker didn’t comment on the tears rolling down my face as I hurried through the line. And I made it to the car before I fell completely apart. But boy oh boy… When that wave hit me, I was laid flat on my back. Holding onto the steering wheel with one hand and my own side with the other because surely the pain would tear me asunder. And my poor Bean climbed into the seat with me and did her best to help me ride the crest. I have never been as grateful for my Xanax prescription as in the last two months.

Yesterday was just a shell shocked fog. I left all those flowers on the patio and didn’t even try to plant them. I took a nap. Dad ordered pizza for dinner and I didn’t even make myself feel guilty over it. I just couldn’t do it, man. And I had a conversation with Bean that took me back to Parenting Lesson #2. I was worried that I’d scared Bean or made things harder for her by letting her see the profundity of my grief and she said, “Mom, you can trust me. I know what you’ve lost and I would rather you be honest with me than stopper your emotions up and explode internally. And when I have to go through this as an adult, I’ll know that these feelings are normal for me, too.” And I just stood there with mouth agape, because… damn. Ok then. I can’t argue with that kind of logic.

I don’t think I’ve been stuffing my grief, truly. It’s more that I am not brave enough to face it head on than anything else. I have never felt a loss this deep and it cripples me in a way I can’t fully describe. It’s not that I’m trying to stuff anything in, it’s that I can’t figure out how to function in my life alongside emotions of this magnitude. It’s not that I don’t trust Bean or my dad or Melissa, it’s that I don’t trust myself. Bean’s observations have had me pondering all day.

I planted the flowers today and afterwards had a good long cry. I hope I’m doing this right. Life feels like a flaming bag of garbage, but maybe that’s normal? I dunno, man. I will just keep listening to my kids and hoping that I’ll see more flashes of brilliance amidst the nudity and public spectacle.