I keep hearing about mothers whose babies have died, and I feel heartcrushingly sad. I don’t know how I would deal with the loss of my son, and sometimes when I think about it—trying to prepare myself for the horrific worst—I become paralyzed. What if I lose him? What if he runs into the street chasing a frisbee and gets hit by a car and in a moment he’s gone? Or what if I get cancer and die next year, and he has to grow up without me? And if Kyle remarries, then what? I want Hutch to have a happy life but I also want him to hate his stepmom out of loyalty to me.
But because I know this paranoia can become toxic if I let it, I tell myself to take deep breaths. Zen-like, I acknowledge that losing Hutch is a possibility but that it hasn’t happened yet, and that I ought not waste time worrying about it while I actually have him here with me, for however long it may be.
I hope it’s like 80 more years.
Even still, I’m not always mature enough to drop it so easily. Sometimes I let the anger toward Hutch’s stepmother fester inside of me until I feel like punching a wall. Other times I feel the sorrow at the hypothetical loss of my son as though I’m the one being hit by the car instead of him. And of course I would take it gladly.
•••••••
I think briefly of a boy I kind of dated a long time ago. I really liked him but one day he said to me, “Life is too sad. I don’t want to love anyone because everyone dies and all the people I love will leave me. It’s easier just to be alone.” I thought he was weird and depressing for thinking such things, but I know now it’s only because I’d never really loved someone that way.
And strangely enough, that moment became a defining point for me. Things didn’t work out between us, but I’m still glad I knew him because I will always have lived through that moment: that moment when I decided that I couldn’t—or wouldn’t—go through life so hopeless. I hated his outlook. I preferred to think of all the good that could come from letting people in, rather than dwelling on how much it would hurt when they’d eventually leave me.
Of course it’s harder now that I’m a little older and have actually known a love I’m terrified to lose. I can see where that boy was coming from. I get it.
It would have been so much easier to tell Kyle no, to walk away and leave him in Canada while I moved to New York and did something posh with my life. It would have been so much simpler if we had never created another little human to look after and protect and love. I would have never had to feel this preemptive pain, this agony of waiting and worrying. I could have been happy with my novels and my Netflix watch list and the occasional bike ride through Central Park. I might have died alone but at least my only sorrows would’ve been that Alias was cancelled and that I lost out on some promotion.
But I didn’t come here to have it easy. I came here to grow and learn and improve myself and others. I want to leave this world better for my presence, not just flit through life making no impact on anyone, ever. I remind myself how discouraging I found that boy’s attitude all those years ago. I recall how jaded he seemed to me, and remember how I never wanted to feel like that.
I have found joy in this life! I have giggled with my baby boy until I thought we both might collapse under the sheer giddiness of it all. I have looked at my husband with love and respect and a mutual understanding I wasn’t sure I’d ever feel for anyone. And I’ve found joy in my own work, too—in the daily progress check on my garden, and the burn of a good downward dog, and the words that sometimes flow from my fingertips, and the way I can help people with my gifts and talents.
My life is not perfect, but I love it so much it literally hurts sometimes.
It’s a good hurt, though, and if I lost it all tomorrow at least I had it once.
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