Today, on what would be her 38th birthday, I wrote a letter to Danielle. It's the first such letter I've written, and it was cathartic. I wasn't sure whether I would just paste it here, or just paste parts of it here, or write something else entirely, but I've decided to share it in its unabridged entirety.
It re-treads some ground that I've already covered in this blog, but this was written to Danielle; those were not. Most typos are inside jokes or turns of phrase.
Happy birthday, Danielle.
I love you. First, foremost, and always. My love for you is unconditional, unquestionable, and unquantifiable. I miss you. Lort, how I miss you. I miss your smile, your wit, your kindness, your grace, your strength, your care, your laugh, your sillies. I miss my partner and companion. I miss my babymama. I miss my wiff.
I cry every day. I have a little ritual - my specific time for grieving you. When I put Torin to bed, I play him the last video you made. I can watch the video itself without crying, now. He often blows you kisses when he sees you blow them at him. One time, I didn’t get to it fast enough, and he asked, “More Mama?” So you see, it’s part of his ritual now, too. Anyways, after the video, I sing him the same song, only it’s, “You’re Mama’s sunshine, her only sunshine”, et cetera. (He has started to sing along a little bit!) And when I do, I think about you. Sometimes, I think about the loss itself, those last terrible months and moments. But lately, I’ve started just thinking about you in general, about your laugh, your touch - little memories and motes of happiness. This is when I cry. Then I calm myself down, turn a book or podcast on in my ear, and hold Torin tight.
That’s not the only time, just the most consistent. Sometimes, I just get triggered. A couple weeks ago, Torin’s teacher asked for pictures of his family so they could make a family tree diagram for the kids to point to. The thought of him seeing you and talking about you without me there to provide context and love… it was unbearable; I broke down and had to take off the last couple hours of the work day.
Early on, I think I kept a really tight lid on my feels. I was constantly distracting myself with games, books, shows, whatever. My parents were practically living here. So when I did break down, it was debilitating. Once, I got lost in looking at pictures of you, and I had to send my parents - and Torin - away for the day. Nowadays, I feel like the freakouts are a little more often, but I also recover faster.
I did bring up the prospect of talking to someone to my doctor at my annual physical, and she referred me to a social worker. I explained to said social worker how I viewed my own ability to cope, and described the frequency and intensity of my episodes, and she said that, provided I was telling the truth - and I think I was; it’s sometimes hard to be honest with oneself - she thought I was doing pretty okay. I just need to watch for changes in frequency/intensity, which I think is reasonable.
I did bring up the prospect of talking to someone to my doctor at my annual physical, and she referred me to a social worker. I explained to said social worker how I viewed my own ability to cope, and described the frequency and intensity of my episodes, and she said that, provided I was telling the truth - and I think I was; it’s sometimes hard to be honest with oneself - she thought I was doing pretty okay. I just need to watch for changes in frequency/intensity, which I think is reasonable.
I’m not depressed. I think that’s an important distinction to make. Bouts of grief and sadness are different from depression, which, as I understand it, is more like a constant state of being. If I thought I were, I would absolutely seek out counseling. If nothing else, a depressed Daddy can’t be the best Daddy he can be, and being the best Daddy I can be is paramount to me.
Here’s the weird thing. I welcome the sadness. Besides my nightly ritual and days like today, I do not seek it out or invite it in, but nor do I fend it off. Being sad means I’m thinking about you, and I want to think about you. There is no grief without love. There is no love without - eventually - grief. Someday, I believe I will be able to think about you - really think about you - and experience only joy amidst my love. But right now, love and sadness are intertwined. To hide from my grief would be to hide from you, from my love for you, and that I could not abide. I want the sadness. I need it.
Speaking of my doctor's visit, my blood test revealed me to be pre-diabetic. Unsurprising - this has been a doozy of a couple years, and I’m the heaviest I’ve ever been. So I started transitioning back to low-carbs. Not strict keto, at least not yet, but I expect it’ll slow down my blood sugar issues even before I start to lose weight.
A positive side effect is that I haven’t gorged myself on all the junk food I inherited from the tailgating last weekend. All your friendsies came in - Sara and Michael too! - and we went to the game. Everyone loved seeing Torin, and they all miss you terribly. It wasn’t the same, and never will be, but if nothing else, I think it’s all the more important to continue the tradition. Coincidentally, Grandpa, my dad, and a bunch of other family were at the game too, because Grandpa was being honored as the veteran of the game! That was really neat. He was out on the field, and they showed pics of him and Grandma on the big screen.
Everyone came over after to hang out. Your mom had come down to stay with Torin during the day, and she liked seeing your friends too. For the first time since… since I lost you, I had gotten really drunk that day. I started in the morning before anyone showed up to carpool, and I kept going all day. I mention this because I think it contributed to my condition as I put Torin to bed that night. We had our ritual, he and I, but unlike other nights, my tears were not silent ones. I was sobbing. Meema must have heard me from downstairs because she came up to take over putting Torin to bed. When she came back down, we held each other and cried for a long time.
She kept talking about how brave you were, at the end. I don’t always think about that aspect of it, but boy was it true. You. Were. So. Strong. I know you had made your peace long ago, and I like to think that it helped that you believe in Torin and me, that we’ll be okay. Yes, I said “believe”, present tense. I often talk about you (or “us”) in the present tense, still. Particularly with Torin. “Momma loves you very much,” I say to him at night. Your feelings, qualities, and love may be frozen in time, but they are forever.
I still write in the blog. As you know, I started even before the end, when you were no longer able to type for yourself. I don’t think you ever read them, but they were well-received; people really appreciated my openness; I was only brave enough to share because of your openness. I do it mostly for myself, though. When the same yucky thoughts keep bouncing around in my head, finally getting them on paper (so to speak) helps tame them. Writing takes a lot out of me, but it is absolutely worth it.
I post less frequently now; mostly on milestones. Most recently, I wrote one on our anniversary. Before that, it hadn’t been since just after your Celebration. Today I did something different; I took the day off so that I could write you this letter. It’s the first time I've written to you, and while I’m not finished, I’m glad that I have. I know you’ll never read this, but it makes me feel closer to you. I may turn it into a blog post, whether in part or in whole.
Speaking of your Celebration - my love, you would have been so proud of us. Megan, Sara, and Jess all helped out, and we made it a party. I got food catered by Zingerman’s and served beer and wine. We had a playlist of 90s music you loved, which played the whole night. For the service, we shared stories and feelings and just… appreciated you. Honored you. Loved you. Many, many people told me it was the most beautiful service they’d ever beheld.
I guess I’ll mention now, since it was another funerary thing, that I had your ashes compressed and solidified into these lovely white stones. I can still hold you, Baby. I can touch you and say goodnight. I can give a stone to your mom, dad, and brother. Though he doesn’t understand yet, I hope someday that Torin will be comforted by their touch. I haven’t forgotten your wishes, my love. A good portion of the stones are destined for Lake Michigan. I’m going to wait a little while, until Torin can understand and participate. I want to charter a boat to take us out deep and have a little ceremony, then deliver the stones unto the deep. The rest of the stones, of you, are for Torin and me.
In lighter news, I’ve managed to become sociable again. Playdates and boardgame nights with the highschool crew. D&D with, well, lots of people. The neighborhood game picked up again in person, with Tim running a new kind of game (similar to D&D, but a little simpler). They all pitch in to pay one of their kids to babysit Torin for the two hour sessions (when a grandparent isn’t around, anyway), and that’s gone fine. I even got to go play with real-life Magic cards last week!
But enough about me. I know whom you really want to hear about is Torin. Babe, you wouldn’t believe how he’s grown this year. I’m so grateful that you witnessed the beginnings of it - learning our names, animal noises, et cetera. But his vocabulary has absolutely exploded since then. He’s even occasionally forming complete sentences now, though he’s a ways off from being truly conversational. Even just being able to express his wants and needs was a game-changer, though. And now he’s saying “please” and “thank you”... oh, it’s a lot. He can count to 20 (and backward from 10), knows his letters (upper and lower case), and can even recognize his own name!
He has gotten a lot more used to school. He doesn’t cry anymore when I drop him off, and he’s usually in a very good mood when I pick him up. Earlier this week, I walked in to find him and the teacher there alone, just dancing. We had gone down to 3 days/week for a while, with my parents taking him Thursday/Friday, but now we’re back up to 5. Or at least, I’m paying for 5 - in practice, one grandparent or another keeps him home for a day. (Last week, he got to hang out with Papa on Thursday and Meema on Friday!) The flexibility to fall back on all 5 days is very nice.
When “real” school started for older kids, they also juggled some of the younger ones around to new classrooms. Torin stayed where he was, however. Mimi was concerned that something was wrong, but it was only that he’s younger than the kids who moved up. He has a new teacher though, whom I haven’t met yet. Overall, I’m very happy with the place, and I’m so glad we’ve sent him there, and so grateful for them pulling some strings to help us out in our hour of need.
You probably remember Blippi, the silly guy on YouTube. Well, that became Torin’s favorite show, and it turns out the Roku we have in the wood room has an app specifically for him, so for a long while that’s all that would play on that TV. But in the last few months, he has gotten some new obsessions, too.
The first obsession was the moon. He was up late outside with my parents, and he became absolutely enamored with it. My dad took some awesome pics with his phone and sent them to me, so Torin would often pat my phone pocket and ask, “Moon?”, so that I would show him the pictures. So for his birthday, I got him a neat wall light for his room that looks like a semi-3D moon, and it lights up one moon phase at a time. So when I’m rocking him to sleep at night, we can look at the moon, and I’ll identify “full moon”, “half moon”, et cetera for him. My parents also got him a book and some wall art featuring the moon!
Speaking of his birthday, we made a big trip to the Detroit Zoo. There were a whole bunch of adults chasing around one kid that day - grandparents and all your besties. It was a really amazing time, and afterward we all went to Session Room to hang out and do presents.
But back to obsessions. His new one is rocket ships. They’re like, the best thing ever. When he’s in the high chair, all he wants to watch are rocket launch compilations (and sometimes rocket crash compilations). He has two neat rocket toys, one of which is bigger and opens up like a toy house, with rooms for little astronauts. The other is smaller and has a button that makes rocket sounds and flashes lights in the back. “Fire in the back!”, as Torin would say. Plus, everything from graham crackers to pinecones can become a rocket ship, in a pinch. (As I mentioned earlier, he can count backward from 10… This is why!)
Re: pinecones, he usually finds those at the park. He loves the park. He can walk down there all by himself now (though of course we hold hands crossing the street!), without a stroller or anything. He runs around after kids, climbs all over, swings and teeters and has a blast. Often, he’ll run under some of the trees and ask me to come too, and we’ll look for good pinecones and sticks to run around with. He likes to pick flowers and asks me to smell them. There is no such thing as a stranger - he will walk right up to people and talk-talk-talk away (just like his Mommy).
He is a wonder. He is a joy. He is ours. He is the best thing we have ever done. He is your legacy. When he’s with me, you’re still with me.
I love you forever.
-Aaron
P.S.
The aminals are all doing okay. I knew it was important to you, so I made sure all three of them got a chance to say goodbye. Beeboo was kinda lost without her person for a while, but I think she has adopted me. I’ll do. I let Fido upstairs now, and he and she coexist just fine on the bed. Demi has actually been the most standoffish, but I think it’s because he isn’t a big Torin fan just yet. (Though Torin is now appropriately gentle with the kitties, and he hardly mauls Fido anymore.)
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