"Here we see the housewife in her dormant state. Soon she will rise and make coffee, waffles, and begin compulsively washing laundry."
My mind though, she bings awake at 5:30 a.m.
She is ready. She is curious, still eager for what the day will bring after 35 years.
She doesn't know she is a housewife. Her imagination radiates in 12 directions before the body rolls from it's pillow. I sometimes marvel at how my entrepreneur father still dreams in full color at nearly 60 years old. After so much "normal" life, he believes something amazing is just around the corner. I guess we are are not so different.
So now I am hear, slugging the brown shit out of the pipes. Trying to clear the throat of my writing voice. Sipping coffee in my thin white robe and hair stwisted up in a bun from our trip to the pool. We are swimming again today, so I get to stay like this. A kid in yesterday's play clothes.
Tomorrow I will facilitate a writing group unlike anything I have ever done.
As so often happens, I am in awe of this new twist in my path.
How did I get here?
Four women are coming to my house.
The one thing they have in common: they all lost their partner to a heroin overdose.
One of them is my sister. She was with Troy from 16 years old until his death at 31.
For half of her life, he lived by her side. Now he is gone.
Last summer when I cleaned out Mom's garage, I found a small box of notes he had written to her.
Nothing profound, just a post-it note that had been stuck to a candy bar.
"I brought you this candy because it is so sweet and you are so sweet.
I hope you have a good day. Love, Troy."
There were ticket stubs from the symphony.
Some of the notes were so small. Things you might have thrown away.
Now they are all that is left.
Our group came about because each woman came to me independent of the others, and asked for help in writing about their grief. I am honored by their trust, and I hope I am worthy of it.
I haven't lost a person in this way.
I won't assume to know what their experience has been or what ache still rolls deep.
I just looked up Troy's obituary. His eyes in the picture looked alive, they were still bright and questioning with a bit of teasing behind them. I can only imagine how my sister must look at his pictures and wish he would come to life. How she must cry.
As I read his obituary I thought: this is not Troy. This is generic. This could be anyone.
I hope my sister gets to write about the real Troy. The one who was hers. The one who will always be hers. Perhaps I've got it wrong. Maybe she needs to do something else. Maybe the story she will tell is different than I expect. Probably.
So as I enter this new space, I pray that my expectations will wait reverently on the sidelines.
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