unexpected time
Almost a year ago at this time, I was in South Carolina visiting a friend when in a flurry of text messages and phone calls, I found out that a family friend had passed away.
It felt so strange.
To be surrounded by so much beauty; and yet, to keep getting reminded that there's so much pain and sadness, too. I had been working on a lot of funny, silly story ideas about Hilton Head hotties, the dearth of sad sack starter wives and the outrageous plethora of second-time-around sex kittens on that island. My trip was made up of Mai Tais and Pina Coladas, noshing on sushi and wading in the ocean. But mostly, I found myself alone inside my thoughts. I had a hard time absorbing everything and finally sat down with my friends for a heart to heart.
And so I cut the trip short to be able to attend the funeral. I had just seen the young woman not two months’ before, at a baby shower. She looked so good, I kept signing that to her and I remember teasing her about the obvious lack of piercings. For years, longer than most pierced people that I know, she’d been dotted with a variety of metals. “I’m a mother now,” she signed to me. “It’s not right anymore.”
And the baby was luscious. A charming chunk who grabbed onto me, arms windmilling, to tote him around the buffet and delight him by pointing out the babified shower decorations of chicks and ducks. It was a happy day.
Later, I learned about the depression she’d had since the baby was born. How she’d taken pills and fought with the baby’s father. Felt like she was failing. At the funeral home, I looked at photos taken when she was little and remembered her when. The priest was from the deaf school and he signed a beautiful service. And later, I pressed the letter into her dazed mother’s hand.
In my letter, which was and is private, I tried to explain how much the young woman’s mother had meant to our family over the years. To tell her that she was a beautiful mother. Pitiful small words that didn’t say much at all, not everything I wanted to say. Not hardly at all.
One year later, I think about that little baby. Remember the way the proud young mother looked that day, smiling serenely and happily telling me her news. Teasing and laughing at the young grandmother, who seemed happier than she had been in years.
Still, I remember.
It felt so strange.
To be surrounded by so much beauty; and yet, to keep getting reminded that there's so much pain and sadness, too. I had been working on a lot of funny, silly story ideas about Hilton Head hotties, the dearth of sad sack starter wives and the outrageous plethora of second-time-around sex kittens on that island. My trip was made up of Mai Tais and Pina Coladas, noshing on sushi and wading in the ocean. But mostly, I found myself alone inside my thoughts. I had a hard time absorbing everything and finally sat down with my friends for a heart to heart.
And so I cut the trip short to be able to attend the funeral. I had just seen the young woman not two months’ before, at a baby shower. She looked so good, I kept signing that to her and I remember teasing her about the obvious lack of piercings. For years, longer than most pierced people that I know, she’d been dotted with a variety of metals. “I’m a mother now,” she signed to me. “It’s not right anymore.”
And the baby was luscious. A charming chunk who grabbed onto me, arms windmilling, to tote him around the buffet and delight him by pointing out the babified shower decorations of chicks and ducks. It was a happy day.
Later, I learned about the depression she’d had since the baby was born. How she’d taken pills and fought with the baby’s father. Felt like she was failing. At the funeral home, I looked at photos taken when she was little and remembered her when. The priest was from the deaf school and he signed a beautiful service. And later, I pressed the letter into her dazed mother’s hand.
In my letter, which was and is private, I tried to explain how much the young woman’s mother had meant to our family over the years. To tell her that she was a beautiful mother. Pitiful small words that didn’t say much at all, not everything I wanted to say. Not hardly at all.
One year later, I think about that little baby. Remember the way the proud young mother looked that day, smiling serenely and happily telling me her news. Teasing and laughing at the young grandmother, who seemed happier than she had been in years.
Still, I remember.
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