Instead of being up early to run this morning, I was up early to let the puppy out, and I spent a small fortune in time with the newly risen sun and my thoughts and the cool still air of a summer morning. That sweatshirt-required cool dampness that burns off as the sun warms us? Love that part of the day. It reminds me of simpler times.
Or maybe everything just reminds me of everything else.
Three years ago today Cole took his last breath before my very eyes and I still haven't dealt with it yet. They had to peel my fingers off him, one by one and then my eyes and lastly my heart, but they left a huge piece stuck to him because they were in a hurry, you see.
I am not.
When I think about him I choke, swallowing back huge gulps of regret washed down with tears because of the way I have managed to vilify him for leaving. Because he was the smart one and I got tired of living on my knees and I did something so horribly selfish and destructive to my family that I still can't live with it but I got burned by it and in the end I think he got off easy and I am here to spend the rest of my life in emotional shackles as a punishment. As a curse. I shouldn't have done what I did but now the only choice left is to begin again. There's a lot of that around here. I always say I'll tear it all down and start from scratch, only it's not turning out the same. I can't rebuild it. It doesn't work so I get a little ways in and then I rip it down again. I need lessons. Time. Experience. Whatever, I don't even know anymore.
There were good things about him. Great things about him and there were awful things too, things he was driven to do because he couldn't control the incredible gifts he had, things he would live to regret when they became the platform upon which I would build my reasons for leaving.
I spent the early part of the morning talking to him. I've been awake for longer than I've been up, you see, with places to go and things to do and I brought a Maglite this time so I could see his face, so I had a focus on his dark blue eyes shot with red and his fingers now permanently curled into claws. Because he is the villain and I am the ghost and not the other way around. It's the only way I can picture us. I told him about the kids playing with the new puppy and part of his face broke off when he smiled, cracking and shattering on the floor like new porcelain. From the corner Jacob sent a beam and when Cole looked up again his face was whole but his eyes had further darkened into bottomless pools of blue unspoken emotions and I clicked the button on the light because my regret came flooding back in a tidal wave and I ran out of words and he screamed for me not to go but I had to. I had to because the fear of myself is so much greater than the fear of him.
Today we'll be going to the bench with Caleb, who is taking us out for a long brunch afterward and then to his loft for some home movies on his stupidly extravagant projection screen. The kids are looking forward to marking this day, though I don't even think they really remember Cole. How many memories do you have from when you were four and six? I mean, they remember who he was, but I don't think they really remember him.
I gave him this because I don't deserve any better. Three years in and I still don't know what to do with any of it. Not a clue. But last year I wouldn't have said it was okay to miss him and this year I am giving myself permission to do just that.
