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Still here.
Everyone is fine.
Alive.
“This is great news,” I say.
My dad grimaces at my tone, and my mom’s eyes fill with sympathetic tears. “We’re so sorry to spring this on you.”
I clear my throat, avoiding eye contact as I move steadily toward the door. “No, no. That’s silly. Really, don’t worry about me. I’m happy for you guys. You deserve to do all of this. I just need to… um, process, you know?” A laugh bubbles out of me. “You know me! I’ll be fine. Have to head home now, though. Work to do. Okay, talk later!”
One of the greatest lessons loss taught me is one I’d rather not know. But I didn’t have a choice in the matter.
Love is grief.
When Jeremy died, all the love I had for him suddenly had nowhere to go. That, I’ve learned, is what breaks a heart. The pressure, the too-fullness, and finally, the rupture. All that excess love reshaped my organs. My cells. My entire inner world.
Mothers feel echoes of this: looking at your child sleeping one night, a twang of melancholia hits. That uncomfortable truth unfolds inside us: we cannot live forever. We will eventually slip away from this moment—this love—either in old age or suddenly, and our child will be left without us.
If you’ve been rewired by loss, though, it’s my experience that instead of an amorphous sadness at the thought of leaving our children behind, or even just the sense of time’s inexorable passage, what we feel is crystal-bright and razor-sharp.
Crippling, staggering fear.
All because of one moment—or a series of them—wherein our brains decided that love was equal to loss. And now every moment in which we experience the fullness, the brightness, of deep love… we simultaneously experience the future loss of it.
In some alternate reality where I’m the bravest human, I suppose I’d naturally lean into this knowledge instead of letting it cripple me. I’d fling my arms wide and embrace the singular tragedy and miracle of life: it’s impermanence.
But I’m not the bravest human.
Not even a little bit.
By the time Damien and I walk up the porch steps of Rose House late that afternoon, I’ve buried my parents’ news somewhere beneath the memory of the time in middle school when I started my period in the middle of a test and the teacher wouldn’t let me leave to use the bathroom.
As Damien crosses to the front door, I veer to the side and make a show of checking my phone. What I’m really doing is forcing my almost-teenager to do something scary without me as a buffer. My heart pulses, tired and tender, trying to make me feel love as loss.
I ignore it.
Everything is fine.
“Mom,” Damien hisses.
Holding the phone like I’m listening to a voicemail, I whisper back, “Just ring the bell.”
The tips of his ears turn red.
I give him a goofy smile and a thumbs-up, which earns me an eye roll but also mellows him out. He rings the bell, and Zoey answers the door with an equally goofy grin.
“Hi.” His voice cracks. “Is Daphne, uh, here?”
“She sure is!” answers Zoey too loudly. I catch her eye and make a slashing motion over my throat; thankfully, she dials down the crazy. “She’s out back. Go on through, Damien.”
My son gives me a brief glance, and for a moment, my heart swells because I think he’s going to ask if I’m sticking around—implying he wants me to—but then he takes a deep breath and says, “Bye, Mom,” and walks into the house.
Zoey catches my expression and makes a sound of sympathy, which I quickly wave away. “It’s fine. I’m fine. He’s almost thirteen, after all.”
Her eyes light up. “His birthday is next week, right?”
I nod, stuffing down a sudden urge to cry. “On Wednesday. We’re having a party Saturday afternoon, but I’ve been slacking on sending out invites. Barbecue at Phillips Park—the one with the skate ramp right outside town. Can you guys make it?”
