feet high. No one saw him, it was late at night. We think he’d been heading back to the dorm, or maybe to his apartment, and just couldn’t go on because of the wheezing, stopped to lie down or sit on the wall, and then he fell, somehow. He had a branch in his hand, he must have grabbed it knowing he was falling.” This is the place I can never get beyond in the telling without tears. “The police found him the next morning.”
“Aww, Sharon.” Kaylee, who hadn’t left yet despite her avowals that she’d be gone when I returned the following week, came up and put her arm around me.
“Don’t you wish you had a daughter?” she asked.
“Oh yes,” I said. “I do. But now I have all of you.”
They laughed and smiled. “How do you stand it?” someone else asked.
“I’m like you,” I said. “I try to work at getting past the hard place, the place that hurts and keeps me stuck—but there’s a place in me, a hole, what had been there gone forever. I’ll never be the same again.” I could see Brisa nodding in understanding. Maybe she’d read to us next week.
“And I write, a lot, and it really helps, and that’s why I want you to write too. We all have important stories to tell. And now it’s time to go for today. Thanks for asking about Geoff, and for caring. You can ask me anything, anytime.”
They looked solemn as they lined up for transition. There was none of the usual pushing and jostling and complaining. I’d told that story so many times, but somehow this time was different. It had felt like they’d really wanted to know about Geoff in a way others usually did not. Most people asked to be polite, out of curiosity, or because it was the right thing to do. Sometimes they backed away, looked down, or changed the subject. They dreaded the emotion that might come up in me, or themselves.
But, as I gave the answers to the girls’ questions, I sensed bridges of shared pain building between us. It was almost like all we’d lost was in the room with us, aching and breathing, a big beating pulse of abuse and betrayals, deaths and assorted other wounds, a presence we had to honor in a new way, with each other.
Maybe, I thought, maybe I’m not so alone. Maybe Geoff has led me here, to these strong, beautiful, real young women, to comfort me, to steer me away from my grief over his absence and push me into the hearts of others.
On the ride home that thought kept coming up—as it would for years.
It upset everyone in my families that I couldn’t be happier at this time of year. Geoff’s birthday was December 1, and that began the season of escalating heartache for me. He’d always loved the holidays so, had been the one of my two sons to most want to help make and decorate Christmas cookies, hang ornaments on the tree as we reminisced about each one, make fancy place cards for our Christmas dinner. The buying of presents had been an earnest task for him, requiring long contemplation over each choice. He’d always saved his money to buy gifts for each of us, and my parents, as well as others who were special in his life.
The Christmas before he’d died, he’d been in Rome, and had stayed on in Europe to travel with his college friends, since he was continuing in the program for the second semester. He’d had to move out of the dorm and into a cheap pensione before they arrived.
How I’d felt his loneliness when he called from a pay phone near the Vatican on Christmas Eve.
“It’s pouring here,” he’d said over the static on the line. “How’s Sasha?” (our black Lab).
I knew he’d never let us know that he wished he were home at Christmas and not by himself in the cold rain. He’d gone to the Amalfi Coast with one friend already, and now would travel to Lugano, Lucerne, and Munich for New Year’s Eve, and to Yugoslavia for skiing with two more friends.
I was thrilled that he had these great opportunities. I asked him about the trips and he sketched some of the details for us, said how grateful he’d been to have the money to make them.
I was grateful too. The money had been challenging to scrape up, but we’d managed to supplement what we could afford with appreciated contributions from both of my parents.
Later, I imagined the excruciating regrets I would have suffered had we not had it to give.
The spring of his sophomore year, when he’d called one afternoon from school to tell me he’d gotten into the Trinity College program, the only one that offered the full year abroad in Rome that he badly wanted, I began to cry.
“Mom,” he scolded, “why are you crying? This is the happiest day of my life.”
Because it was 1986. Terrorists had put bombs in the Fiumicino airport, and some had gone off. Because he had asthma and the air in Rome was toxic.
“Because I’m so afraid something is going to happen to you,” I’d said to him.
• • •
I had struggled over gifts for the girls. What to get, what would they like, how much should I spend? It didn’t seem right to make a big splash with fancy presents, and I knew I couldn’t pick out individual gifts for each. That would never have worked, probably would have fed jealousies and started fights. So I settled on some rhinestone hair ornaments, each one different, that I’d seen on a trip to the Gap. Because the price tags were gummed on so hard, I’d had a really hard time scraping them off, so they ended up seeing what I’d paid.
“You spent $5.98 on me?” said Brisa, shocked. “I’d never do that for anyone.”
“I feel special,” said Nia, dancing around the room.
Kaylee went into the bathroom to put the clip in her hair, came out to show me with that beautiful half-smile of hers. I would miss her so much.
I handed back their typed pieces; Nia was the only one happy with hers. Before the meeting, I’d spoken to the assistant director about Brisa and Ana—Brisa sleeping all the time, Ana not writing anything. Brisa sat straight up throughout our session today and volunteered to read her work twice. Ana didn’t read, but promised she would next time. Tiffany had a doctor’s appointment, so wasn’t with us, but I gave her gift to Kaylee to give to her.
I asked the girls to write about Christmas. That was a big mistake. They all wrote unconvincing sentimental pieces, imagining Hallmark holidays with their families that probably would never happen.
They just weren’t into it today, talking with each other, ignoring me. I gave them “home” as the next prompt.
My red farmhouse is home. I’ll drive up the gravel driveway tonight and see the candles lit in all its windows and feel its welcome. Being here with you girls makes me appreciate home. That I have a choice to go home when I want to, that I have a home to go to. After my son died, the cemetery was home. I went there every day and cried, sat by his gravestone trying to make myself believe he was really dead. I wanted to be there more than anywhere else, the house I lived in then didn’t feel like home anymore. I’d bring rocks from the beach and planted flowers there. Sometimes my husband and I would just go and sit. We felt like we were with him then.
Maybe that had been too sad for today? I felt so unsure about what I was doing here when the girls were unresponsive like this. I’d asked them to write a goodbye to Kaylee, another grave miscalculation.
