Not One, But Two

The world is slowly opening up again. And for the first time in nearly two years I find myself encountering people who don't really know me, don't know my story. Sometimes that feels liberating, like I can actually be whomever I wish to be - devoid of the scarlet D.C. that burns on my chest. But then I feel guilty, and the return back to my reality is disorienting. For moments my brain forgets that I will not come home to two children, but one. I will not come home to the loving embrace of a full family, but the hollow nightmare of one torn asunder.

And then there is the question, that once seemed so innocuous - even an opportunity for spontaneous joy just two years ago. "How many children do you have?" The plural so innocent. It should not be this hard to answer, but it is.

The truth will drop an ocean of cement on the moment, perhaps the entire interaction, perhaps the entire new relationship. But the partial truth, or the lie, becomes a new ripping open, a fresh invisible wound that I will bear for days afterward - that makes me weepy and renews the grip of that ever-present pull into the quicksand.

I am so tired of being stuck in this fragile slip of land on the shores of that abyss - jumpy with the truth that anything at any moment might push me backwards.

A week ago it was a birthday party hosted by a mother I'd never met before. A mother of three, or four, enough to make the question of how many I had a mere formality in the way one gets to know a stranger. She seemed sweet, strained by a recent move from overseas (and a strong desire not to know that her daughter went by an entirely different identity in my son's presence than she did at home.) We all bear our secrets, our imagined shames. But I told her "one". I said "one". And a week later I am still trying to justify the response as kindness on my part, not wanting to burden her. But it was a lie. And as I endlessly play back the conversation I cannot figure out the right words to tell the truth. One alive, one in spirit? One alive, one who died two years ago? One in the flesh, one in my heart? One you can see, one you can't?

To the ether I shout, "Just come back Oli! Make this easier on your mom!"

How selfish of me, to wish it easy. To worry about my own struggles in the here and now when he can't be present.

Last night it was the physical therapist. Mother of two grown children, boy and girl, joyfully regaling me with stories of their Friday night pizza and games growing up. I referred to my children in response, the memory of last week's omission heavy on my shoulders, but then she asked how old and I said, "my oldest is 13". And I left it at that. And again an omission. "My youngest died at 8." I might have said. But didn't. So, again the guilt. We were just 5 minutes into the appointment, I dragged the omission around like a ball and chain for the rest of the time, wanting to blurt out some correction, unsure how to do so. I never did.

I had seen with another therapist to whom I'd told the truth how that weighed on her. That one, a new mother. How when I saw her again days later she couldn't meet my eyes. How I thought about the way my truth created questions she didn't want to ask but would lie awake with because of the not knowing.

Do I imagine the circumstances that prompt my omissions?

Would the conversations be just fine?

Why do I care?

I care because I hate to see the horror in their eyes. I care because I don't want them to know that this life I live is possible. And yet in trying to shield the strangers and myself from the truth I burn myself repeatedly with what feels like erasure of one of the most important pieces of who I am as a human. "You don't owe them your story," kind friends say. But do I owe Oli his?

What if it's actually selfish not to tell them. Not just to Oli's memory, but to their understanding of the world. By keeping silent I deny them the truth that might make them hold their own children closer, smooth the edges of their frustrations with the daily challenges of parenting, force a recognition of the beauty of the here and now. We all live too unaware of our mortality and that of those we love and that makes us complacent, it dulls us to wonder, to gratitude. But oh, gratitude is such a heavy lift when you are living the truth. Perhaps I just don't have the energy to be their teacher.

Still. I have not one, but two.

Two suns. One who shines in his very present 13-year-old glory, and one who shines in every fiber of my being.

It is perhaps unfair of me to assume nobody new to knowing me can understand that. For what unknown hurts do they carry?

How do I know my sharing might not offer them a chance to share their invisible lights as well?

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