"Happy Birthday(s), Jessica" by my brother Ted

Ted, me, Tim

       

Yesterday was the 101st day on which I posted a poem [on Poetry and Beyond.]  I was going to stop now, so I could call the whole ensemble “Poetry 101″.  But my sister pointed out that it was her birthday [April 12], and she thought that I owed her a poem.  Actually, since I never  remember birthdays, I owe her dozens.  Here’s one.

For My Sister’s Third Birthday
(66 years late)

                                                                             ***

Brave little troll,
Big rounding eyes,
Hands ever moving,
Then pausing; alright, grab it!

“If she does it, I can do it. If she says it, I’ll say it too.
Maybe if I pretend to cry, I’ll get it.
Oops, I forgot I was pretending, now I’m really sad.

 “There’s something I haven’t touched yet.
    There’s something, I don‘t know what’s in it.
    Wait till everybody’s out of the room,
    Then, very gently, touch it all over.

“Would you do this for me?
Do it again for me.
Oh, I see how he does it  .  .  .
No, keep away, I’ll do it myself!

“Ted is nice to me when I’m naughty, I love him.
Tim is scary sometimes, but he’s funny too, I love him.
But Mummy is always Mummy, so I love Mummy best of all.”

Must keep parents happily deluded

     I was three years old.
     It was Christmas Eve.
     I had been put to bed early but I got up to tell or ask Mommy something important to me. I took a few steps down the stairs and peered through the banisters. Mommy and Daddy were standing at the fireplace, taking turns leaning down and then reaching up and doing something with their hands, speaking to each other in low tones. I had three unhappy epiphanies at once.
     Daddy and Mommy were stuffing our stockings.
     So there was no Santa Claus.
     And I had better forget about whatever I needed to tell them and creep back upstairs without their knowing I had seen them.
     Because believing I believed their lies was important to them.

Inner tube with hole

I help people and I hurt people. First I help them, really go out of my way for them, genuinely care about them. Then, when they like me and trust me, I let them down. I don't think I mean to. But after being there for them until they count on me, I'm--not. To the degree that I was a rock for them, encouraged them, supported them, blessed them, I lose interest or I can't anymore. Then I lacerate them with words or just walk away. Because we have developed a relationship, it hurts them much worse than it would have otherwise.

I warned Jerry I was like that. I told him he'd be sorry if he fell in love with me, if he married me. I warned him I would hurt him. But he did anyway. And I have. Just like I hurt my first husband.

I am cruel and mean-spirited. I don't seem so at first. Even I don't believe I am--at first. I told Jerry about a dream I had that hadn't materialized, a dream that was impossible to realize now. He worked hard, in secret, and made it happen. I was thrilled, I thanked him profusely and sincerely, told him how amazing he was. But the day came when I turned on him and said it hadn't worked after all. It had been a lot of work for me and gotten my hopes up and nothing came of it; I wished he'd never interfered and it was all his fault.

Although he always tells me, "There's nothing to forgive," you can't undo something like that.

My response to wounding people so deeply, against my own desire, is to want to cease to exist. I don't think I should never have been born, exactly. I just wish I could become a ghost, inaudible, invisible, cease existing. I am expendable. If I never go out of the house, out of the bedroom, if I don't talk to anyone, maybe it will be as if I don't exist. Maybe if I don't move and barely breathe. But Jerry is in the house. Jerry is in the bedroom. I can never be that invisible.

Paradoxically, my trying hurts him worse. When I explain that it would solve everything if I just removed myself from the situation, disappear from his life so he can recover and go on with it, it wounds him more. He has even wept over it. That makes me crazy. And so, so guilty, like a knife in my gut.

If only they would listen when I warn them at the very beginning, This won't be good for you. You'll be sorry you were drawn in to loving and trusting me. And it will be a Catch-22 for me because I cannot extricate myself from your life without destroying you.

There's no way out that doesn't hurt them worse.

"I've got you."

I haven't been all right today. No sense of purpose, no motivation, just a heaviness, a terrible, empty hurt that isn't physical. I want to go Home.

With an effort, I stir myself to show interest in something other than me. "Are you all right?" I ask Jerry.

"I'm fine," he says, squeezing my hand cheerfully. "I've got you."

After a minute I ask, "Do you always say that because you really are fine or because you want me to think you are?"

"When I have you, I'm fine. When I don't have you, I'm not fine."

I consider that. "How can having me make you fine?"

"What do you mean?"

"Your having me is like a man in the middle of the ocean having nothing but an inner tube with a hole in it."

"How are you like an inner tube with a hole in it?"

"No one can lean on it. It will take you down."

"You don't take me down," he says.

But I know better.

Analogy

We were sitting at a long craft table in a kind of warehouse, which was lined with shelves full of objects one could paint or decorate. We were visiting with family while the children played on equipment in an adjoining room and there was a woman we didn't know sitting near us. I think she said her name was Susan. As we talked, a woman approached Susan, holding in both hands a battered shoe box bound with masking tape.  

She held it out, saying, "Do you think these are too fragile to--" The box slipped from her hands and hit the floor with the crash of things smashing to smithereens.

Stunned, none of us moved--until the woman who had dropped the box and a man somewhere behind her began laughing uproariously. Susan joined them.

It was all a practical joke. We were filled in on the back story. Susan is a glass-blower and makes things with molten glass. She needed to take a lot of her stuff home and the couple, known pranksters, had offered to help her pack it up. After one missed heartbeat, Susan knew the box held nothing of significance, nothing but junk.

The battered box bothered me more than it did Susan. I keep remembering it and identifying with it. I am like that ugly box all taped together, all the parts of me inside now, no longer separate. When we fall we fall as one unit. Although we sound as if we are smashing to smithereens, we are actually already smashed. There is nothing of significance inside, nothing but junk.

Too many deaths, too many losses

I think I need to get back on my anti-depressant. I'm crying all the time.

It isn't just the death of my first husband ten years ago. It's the death of 16 close friends, casual friends, and extended family members--or family members of friends--this year. It's the loss of our church family, the new pastor's wife telling us (long-time members), "You are NOT WELCOME here!" on New Years Day. It's the betrayal two days ago by my sister-in-law.

Draining

I had known it for weeks. There was a great grief welling up inside me, bulging up toward the surface, determined to burst. But I didn't know what it was about.

On November 5 I read a quote on a friend's blog: "When a widow prepares her heart to move forward, whether she means to or not, her mind begins to remember the worst things about her husband. It's a way of making it easier, like starting a fight before a goodbye."

Three days later the pain was lanced and drained, boiling over in a two-hour torrent. It was the deferred grief over the death of my first husband to brain cancer. The last thing unaffected by his paralysis was his strong left hand. Less than two years after losing him, I had lunch with a widower who extended both hands, cupped, across the table to me so he could say grace. I grasped them as I would a life preserver, knowing that by doing so I was committing myself to him forever. I was ravenous to be loved again, in every way. I thought (me, a spiritually mature, chaste Christian woman!), "I don't know a thing about him but hey, if it doesn't work out I can get a divorce."

Two weeks later we were engaged. (What took you so long? I wondered.) One day under three months from that first date we were married. He assured me if I wasn't through grieving, he would grieve with me. But how could I do that to him? So I had packed the unfinished sadness away.

Instead, I only mentioned to him the bad things about my first husband, like his frustration and eventual anger over my frigidity, my terror of s*x. He had finally told me (a woman whose father had made her feel like a slut, a woman barely able to respond to s*xual overtures, much less intitate them!), "I don't even want to hold or snuggle with you in bed. It makes me want you. If you want s*x, come get it." Ouch. He never believed I actually wanted it, needed it as much as he did.

I have often pictured him in heaven, responding in astonishment to the news that his wife is able to give herself freely to her second husband, even enjoy s*x: "Jessica?"

I would tell my new husband that I hadn't wanted to marry again because the old one had persuaded me no other man would put up with me. I would tell my new husband the things he does better than the old one. There were multitudes of positive things about the old one but I hadn't let myself remember them and now I knew why.

I had been starting a fight before the final goodbye.

Now I know why there are days, despite life with a husband I still consider perfect after 8-1/2 years, when all I do is sit up in bed and weep.

On November 8, I poured it out to G. for two soggy hours: He was a good man. I had forgotten that! He loved me. He provided for me, cherished me and tried with all his might, poor sod, to understand me. We had wonderful times together, close, fun times. And I miss him.

(* is to avoid predators.)