Last night, I started thinking about my word, considering various possibilities. I still hadn’t found the right word. It’s like trying on dresses at Nordstrom’s for a special occasion. I only need one and I want it to be perfect. It has to fit properly, look wonderful and feel great. My thoughts went around and around—Steve, my job, Amy and Brian. My word for the year—love? Change? Something else? Strangely, unexpectedly, I found myself remembering Lauren. Lauren. My baby daughter, whom I never had a chance to know. The baby I held in my arms so briefly. Born too soon, she died during the first week of her life, nearly thirty-six years ago. Every year on the date of her birth, Steve would bring me a bouquet of daisies, to let me know he hadn’t forgotten her or the pain we endured as young parents, losing our first child. I’m really not sure why I started thinking about Lauren just then.
Determined to dwell on the present and not the past, I turned my attention to searching out a suitable word for the year. It took a while but I found one that feels right for me. As I sat in the shadows, unable to sleep, listening to the grandfather clock tick away the minutes, my word came to me.
TIME.
I’m fifty-seven. In three years I’ll be sixty. Sixty. I don’t feel close to sixty and I don’t think I act it. Still, it’s the truth, whether I choose to face it or not. There always seemed to be so much time to do all the things I’d planned. For instance, I always thought that someday I’d climb a mountain. I don’t know exactly why, just because it sounded like such a huge accomplishment, I guess. Now I know I won’t be doing any mountain-climbing, especially at this stage of my life. It all comes down to choices, I guess. Besides, I’ve got other mountains to climb these days.
At one point, when we were in our twenties, Steve and I wrote a list of all the exciting things we were going to do and the exotic vacations we planned to take. The years slipped away and we were caught up with raising our family and living our lives. Those dreams and plans got pushed into an indefinite future. We assumed there’d always be time. Someday or next year, or the year after that. This is a mistake I don’t intend to repeat and why the word time is appropriate for me. I want to be aware of every moment of my life. And I want to choose the right plans and dreams to fulfill in the years that are left to me. As soon as I settled on my word, I was instantly tired and fell promptly asleep.
Because I didn’t go to sleep until after two, I slept late. I didn’t make breakfast until past noon. I had the television on for company, but football’s never interested me. That was Steve’s game, though, and I found it oddly comforting to keep the channel on the Rose Bowl. For a few hours I could pretend that my husband was with me. The house didn’t feel quite as big or as empty.
The house…that’s something else I have to consider. I should make a decision about continuing to live here. I don’t need three thousand square feet, but this was the home Steve and I bought together, where we raised our family. With the way real-estate prices have escalated, I’m sitting on a lot of money that could well be invested elsewhere.
It’s silly to hold on to this place. The house was perfect when Andrew and Annie came to spend the weekend. Two rambunctious grandchildren need all the space they can get. It didn’t bother me then or when Brian lived at home. We needed a big house in order to stay out of each other’s hair, but for just me…Actually it’s the thought of getting it ready to sell—sorting through all the stuff that’s tucked in every nook and cranny, then packing up fifty-seven years of accumulated junk—that’s giving me pause.
After Steve died, my friends advised me to delay any major decisions for twelve months. That’s good advice to remember now. What I’m experiencing is a second loss. The loss of my children. I’m the only Kenyon left in Willow Grove.
I’m not entirely alone, however. My friends are here—those I’ve known all my married life, although it seems we’ve drifted apart since Steve died. My new friends live here, too—the women I met in the journal-writing class. I’m grateful to Sandy O’Dell for recommending I enroll. It was exactly what I needed, and I’ve learned a lot about myself through the process of writing down my thoughts every day. I wish now that I’d kept a diary when I was younger. Perhaps then I’d have found it easier to understand and express my own feelings.
Our teacher, Suzanne Morrissey, was an English professor assigned to the class at the last minute. Unfortunately, she didn’t have any idea where to start, although she gave it a good try. Mostly, she had us read and critique literary journals, which was interesting but not all that useful. Still, I suppose keeping a journal isn’t really something that can be taught. It’s something you do.
What came out as I wrote in my journal was this deep sense of loss and abandonment I’ve felt since Steve’s death. I’d assumed that after six years I’d dealt with all that, but coupled with Amy and Jack’s move to the mid-West, followed by Brian’s moving out…well, it’s too much.
Amazing, isn’t it, that I can cope with one crisis after another in my job at the hospital yet feel so defeated by the events in my own life?
Clare and I have been spending quite a bit of time together. That’s probably natural, her being recently divorced and me a widow. Clare’s situation is similar to mine a few years back when I realized, to my dismay, that my friends came in couples. Most of them are matched sets. Like me, Clare has come to recognize that she lost not only her husband but the framework of her social world, which crumbled right along with the marriage. Although her circumstances are different from mine, the outcome has been the same. The dinners, card-playing, even something as uncomplicated as a night at the movies—it all seems to be done in pairs.
Within a few months of Steve’s death, I found myself drifting away from the very people I’d once considered our dearest friends. We have so little in common anymore that I couldn’t see the point.
It was awkward, too. People didn’t know what to say after the accident. In fact, I didn’t want anyone to say anything. What I needed was someone to listen. Few of my friends understood that.
Clare’s had a hard time adjusting to the divorce. Losing the people she once considered her friends is a bitter pill after everything she’s been through with Michael. Maybe she should have taken it up with the attorney: custody of the friends. Who gets to stay friends with whom?
Really, it’s odd that Clare and I should have bonded at all. We’re very different kinds of people; in our previous lives, we probably wouldn’t have felt the slightest interest in knowing each other. Right now, Clare’s angry and bitter and struggling not to be. I still have my share of anger, too, yet I’m more accepting of the events that led me to this point (but then, my husband didn’t leave me for another woman). I enjoy Julia and Karen, too, but it’s Clare I identify with most. Perhaps it’s the loneliness. That’s something we both understand. Something people can’t truly appreciate until they’ve experienced it themselves.
Time. This should be the best time of my life. I have a fabulous career. When I started out at Willow Grove Memorial, I never dreamed that one day I’d end up as the hospital administrator. My children have grown into responsible adults. I had a wonderful marriage and I’ve got lots of memories to sustain me. Yes, this should be a good time, and it will be—once I learn how to live contentedly by myself.
Liz stared at the phone on her desk, dreading its ring. Her Monday had begun badly, and already she could see that this first week of the new year was going to be a repeat of December, with many of the same problems she’d faced then. The hospital was no closer to a new contract with the nurses’ union, and the state health inspectors were scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. In addition, she’d had several hot flashes and been downing Chai tea with soy milk all morning. This was not a good start to the year, she thought gloomily.
She got up and removed her jacket, placing it on a hanger. Then she unfastened the top button of her white silk blouse and rolled the long sleeves past her elbows. Picking up a piece of paper from the desk, she fanned her flushed face and