Like glossy carpet, photographs lie all over my son’s bedroom floor. They’re spread out, poured from tipped-over boxes. They’re stacked in piles. They stand in a line at the back of his desk. It’s the same boy over and over again. There he is posed in his Astros uniform. There he is holding hands with a friend outside the Exploratorium. There he is, face pressed against his brother’s as they concentrate on something just outside the frame. There he is perched proudly in front of the 1000-piece puzzle he completed the summer before starting second grade. There we are, tongues out, eyes wide attempting our silliest expressions on his 10th birthday.
There are 11 ½ years of regular moments. There are 11 ½ years of milestones. On the morning of his 6th heart operation last October, when he sat next to his brother and two step siblings in the waiting room, how could I have known the last picture of them would be captured? As doctors escorted him through the double doors, his voice fell into my ears for the last time. “I love you, too,” it said.
“I don’t know what to do without you,” I say to his wardrobe, to the assorted stuffed animals, his map of the United States dotted with pushpins. “I don’t know who I am anymore. I don’t know how to be me, without you.” Waiting for a reply, I hear a skateboard roll past our house, a child shouting to a friend, laughter. I’m reminded of a day when our neighbor’s dad gave Riley a tandem ride down our hill on his skateboard. Riley beamed. That was probably one of the few moments where he felt really alive, invincible. Normal. You see, his single ventricle heart prevented him from having energy to master physical feats like skateboarding. Or the wherewithal to endure the falls that go with them.
As I stared toward the laughter, lost in memory, my husband found me sitting on Riley’s sleeping bag with a stuffed penguin in my arms. “He’s everywhere and he is nowhere,” I say. “I don’t understand. I can’t understand.” I bury my face in his cotton-filled sleeping companion, searching for my son’s scent.
“I’m not sure it will ever make sense,” he said softly, looking into this closet of neatly folded t-shirts. We scanned the room, me wanting to inhale what he had exhaled. There were puzzles and LEGO and books and posters on the walls. “These are all of his things; he’s touched all of these things.” It was only a couple of weeks earlier that I spent the weekend in his bed wearing his t-shirts, his watch, his Rainbow Loom necklace. “And look, he forgot to put his socks away,” he added, trying unsuccessfully to tether a smile to my grief.
After my husband wandered back into the house, I found myself curious about the woman in all of those photos. She’s smiling, laughing, joyful. I studied her long blonde hair. It cascades down the sides of her neck onto her chest. Through the years of photos, she’s the same. Even when a hat covers her hairline or glasses outline her eyes, her long strands follow her through the years. The baby grows into the toddler, who becomes the Little Leaguer and viola player; the long locks are consistent. Like a mother’s love, I think. Through long hospitalizations, holidays, separation and divorce, it’s there. Through new love and step-family and pets, it’s there. As his heart slowed last October and squeezed for the last time, it was there.
Four months later, it was still there. I pulled my fingers through it. It was coarse and dry from years of highlights and lowlights. I dragged a clump of neglected strands across my cheek. Frayed ends scratched dry skin. Pulling at brittle strands, pieces broke. I kissed the penguin and tucked him into the sleeping bag before heading into bathroom light.
“Who are you?” I demanded of the reflection. I stared at the her; she stared back, vertical crease between her eyes, eyebrows pinched, unrelenting furrowed brows clenched. I ran my fingers over the pinched skin trying to smooth it out, relax the angry, heartbroken muscles. There were several inches of dark growth near the scalp. “You were so happy, weren’t you? Smiling and laughing. You ignorant, stupid woman.”
Through the basket under the sink I rummaged until my hand grasped my husband’s beard trimmer. Inserting the plug into the outlet, I stared into her unblinking hazel eyes. “You don’t know anything about me.” My thumb pushed power into the clippers and vibrations ran through my arm. “Fuck you.” Blades skimmed across the ends of my hair sending clippings into the air like dust. I couldn’t go any further. For a long time, I stared her down, beaming hatred toward her, the clippers buzzing, threatening to destroy that long-haired stranger.
After a few minutes, I silenced the clippers, too chicken to shave it off. Instead, I retrieved the scissors from the kitchen knife block. Clasping a fistful of hair, I chopped through one side, then the other. Then, pulling clumps away from my scalp, I chopped those too. Again and again, I cut and sawed and chopped until any visual sign of that happy woman was gone.
Like a mound of severed limbs, a heap of hair lay on the countertop. I stared into her eyes again. Without hair to hide behind, the dark rings from exhaustion and grief stood prominently above her cheekbones. While I didn’t recognize the short-haired stranger either, she was scraggly, ugly, and looked how I felt on the inside.
Certainly my son’s death was a defining moment, the tectonic plates crashing, destroying the landscape of my life. But what has surprised me is how many defining moments have rippled in its wake. As I’m learning from talking to other grief-stricken mothers at a weekend retreat, the deaths themselves knocked our lives off course, but their aftermaths continue to mold and shape us just the same. Those smaller defining moments are equally powerful, even though they are quieter, less public, internal shifts.
Every time I see the short-haired woman, it’s a visual reminder that I am different, physically altered as well as mentally and emotionally altered by my son’s death. And I still cringe whenever someone comments on how cute my new haircut is.
Welcome to the second issue of Six Hens.
