I am searching for the words to tell you a story, to tell tale of a day that I am having trouble organizing the feelings and them putting into words. It was one day, 8 hours, it should be so simple to start the narrative, to set the scene. But it is not. Simple words won’t give justice to what I want you to see. I want to share with you something that touches me deep in the richest and saddest parts of me. How can I get you to understand that this was not no simple ordinary day, this wasn’t just a random Thursday that happened in my life. What words, what image can I get you to conjure up in your mind that would set you deep in your seat, in your soul. I think of a starting point: ‘I went into my shed and loaded the lime green cordless power tools into the blue milk crate’. You can see the tools, the milk crate, maybe you can see the weathering on the crate or see the saw dust falling off the saw. But it was more then moving tools, it was more than grabbing my tool bags, the ones I have not dawned in almost a decade. Loading them with a chalk line and torpedo level, tape measure and pencil. Grabbing the four-foot level and couple old pickle jars turned screw holders. It was more than grabbing tools and I didn’t know it at that time.
There was a lot of thought into grabbing the tools, thinking of what she needed done, how I was going to do it, what it was going to look like. I wanted to be detailed, organized, I wanted the work to be simple and thoughtless. I wanted to be of service, I needed her to be free and feel taken care of. I lifted the window and dropped the tailgate on the Suburban, pulled out the plastic bins of paint supplies and replaced them with construction tools. Lock the shed, closed the chain link gate and send a text, ‘I’m gunna head up your way soon but we don’t need to fly into action’. I start the Suburban with a slow crank that turns into a high idle and let it warm up. There’s something special about a 30-year-old vehicle, the soul it has, the life it’s lived. It’s red paint shiny as the day it was bought in some spots, in other spots not so much. I stop for gas then start my trek, over the grade and into north county.
It’s still just an ordinary Thursday at this point. I’ve the day off work and I’m headed to my ex-wife’s house to board up a hole in the attic of her shed to stop the racoons from living in there. Two days prior she had to put down our dog, well her and my daughter’s dog – she got Allie in the divorce but I never didn’t not still consider her mine too. She had called me the Tuesday morning prior filled with anxiety and fear over how sick the Allie was, she called a couple hours later in tears when she found out how bad she was, ‘we need you’ she squeaked out in between sobs. My heart fell forty stories hearing her voice like that, my little girl in the background hysterical. I was at their house within an hour and we were off to the vet to put Allie down. The last time my ex-wife cried in my arms like that was when she found out her father had passed, that was 2009. I could feel the pain coming from her now like I did back then, the overwhelming sadness that was breaking her. Allie was there for her through so much, since we divorced in 2012 neither one of our lives has been a walk in the park and Allie mended the sadness and loneliness for her.
I got to their house around 9:30 and the sun was making it’s entrance into the day,m warming the air. Her grass tall and green from the recent rains, weed’s popping up between the bricks in the walkway, bushes over grown. Spring is arriving and it’s a beautiful sight in North County. I go in the house, Elisa is fresh faced, eyes tired as the longest day of summer is each year. I’m guessing not much sleep has been had. We walk into Delaiah’s room and wake her. I don’t often get to wake her, not like I used to when we were married. It’s one of those thigs I missed and still do, along with tucking her in and making pancakes on Sunday mornings. She declines our invite to go to the mega hardware store, the one that put most all the mom and pop hardware stores out of business. I’d rather not shop there but convenience and price win out most times, well that and I’ve no idea where a true hardware store is up there. With a kiss on Delaiah’s forehead we say goodbye and off to homeowner do it yourself hell we go.
We talk about Delaiah, about what we need from the store and how she is feeling with Allie being gone. We talk about work and Covid and how lame Fakebook is. I park in Egypt, trying to impress her with my ability to not drive around for the best parking spot, I don’t know if it’s a man thing, an ego thing or a control thing but it happens. We grab our masks that we won’t wear and head for the doors. We walk by the flowers and succulents, she tells me of how she wants to plant lavender on the front slope of the yard. I start thinking of a way to do this, her whim is still pretty much my command. I want to be of service to her, my dedication to her was waning at one point in our lives but now this is not the case. Some think it beyond normal for an ex-husband to be so willing to help an ex-wife and that is quite sad. If I truly loved the woman, unconditionally, no matter our past hardships or present disagreements – that should not affect my devotion.
We do some shopping; she breaks down some seeing a little dog in the store. We walk the isles, search out the right weedwhacker, foaming root killer for her pipes and make our way to the lumber department. I couldn’t tell you what we bought in our last trip to Home Depot 7 years back, it was something for the house we owned I’m sure. But I can tell you walking those isles with her was like being home again, it reminded me of the weekend mornings we would go shopping with Delaiah in tow. She did not care too much for that type of shopping, but Elisa and I enjoyed it. We got to put effort into our home, we got to make it a home – something we both craved for ourselves and for Delaiah.
We get plywood and screws and L metal and make our way back to the front of the store. I contemplate paying for all this, which is completely normal where I come from, which still feels like my job when we are together. I thought that was my main job when we were married, thought that made me a good husband but all it did was make me a good provider... I let her pay, she wants to be independent and not indebted to me. I can see this now once I started working on ego, once I realized not everything was my job or responsibility. With the goodies bought and paid for it’s off to the suburban, as we walk by the lavender I am still thinking of a way to plant it in her front yard. We load up the loot and head back to house, both wondering if Delaiah is up yet. There is something magical that happens inside my heart when we talk about her, it’s like flowers bloom and all this warm gushy stuff melts all over it. I am so in love with my family, so in love with them as individuals. Their attributes and faults alike, I cherish all of it. To be able to sit from a far and watch them, watch them alone or interacting together makes my heart swoon. I have been so lucky to have them in my life; they have enriched it in a way no others ever could. I am beyond grateful to have gotten them back after the divorce.
Now I’m not always treated as I would like to be, at times it breaks my heart something fierce, but I let that wash away with the moment and come back to center, come back to who they are – not were, but are, they are my family. I would like to be included more, thought of more - my self-centered nature calls for this, my loneliness desires this. I would like to be called dad when I am talked about or referred to by Elisa, my ego needs to be acknowledged for this, it needs to know she knows who I am to Delaiah. It’s all known but ego wants to hear it, wants the world to hear it. I want to be invited places and called regularly, I want to be included, I want my family to want me as I want them (desire is the root of all suffering you know). But that is not the case and I understand why. That is not how it is and if it was so, it might get complicated. I am living in the past, living in a life that has been gone for quite some time now and that is ok too. I accept the way I feel and I surrender to it and let it go. I take what I can get from my family and stay grateful for those moments, they give me some of the happiest feelings I have ever felt.
We get back and walk into the house. I see Delaiah up and on the couch, in her PJ’s, still half asleep with bedhead. OH! I just wanted to gobble her up, squeeze her so tight her eyes bulged out! I am so in love with my daughter, so in love with my ex-wife, so in love with this moment. We talk with Delaiah some, give her a hard time and she giggles like she does. She then cusses, which is her normal when around her mother and I tell her that’s unbecoming language of a young lady and she acts so surprised I would say such a thing and wee laugh some more.
I do not want to move on, I want to stay here in this moment, in this reenactment of my former life with them. Elisa in the kitchen screaming gibberish, Delaiah on the couch watching something on her phone and I’m standing there so fucking grateful I couldn’t even explain it to you. I got back a moment that has been gone for what feels like forever. I want to stay here, right here, stop time and never have this feeling leave me. But that is absurd, we cannot stop time, we cannot live in one feeling for the rest of our lives. Everything is always changing and I am grateful I have learned how to be in the moment and cherish it. I’ve not known a spring day so beautiful in what seems like forever, nor one as tragic.
It’s early afternoon and I am hungry along with the bobbies twins, of course the young one wants fried food from the local liquor store so we oblige and get some garbage lunch. After eating what is sure to contribute to a future heart attack Elisa and I go outside and get too working on dishoming raccoons from her shed. We take measurements, snap lines with a chalk box on the plywood, get out the cheap bright green cordless saw and I show her what to do. During all this manufacturing of the barricade Delaiah comes out to sit on the porch and read her book for school. I’m home again, I’m back on Palomar and we are a family, my heart wells up with tears of sadness and gratitude. We move into lining all the edges of the plywood with some L metal cuz them raccoons have some tenacious claws that will rip apart most anything. She starts setting screws and I hold steady the wood. We take it around back to the shed and to my surprise it fit’s damn near perfectly, I am impressed with myself to say the least. Most times my measurements are off, just like most my calculations of life. You think you know something to be true to only find it is not and all that thinking and measuring and figuring availed you nothing but time spent obsessing. After that task is accomplished my work is technically done here but I do not want to leave.
I grab the box with the cordless weedwhacker in it and start to open it up. “We should of did this first so it could charge” I say and she laughs as do I. She sets up the charger and go around back and grab the lawnmower, I start mowing the lawn. The grass/pretty weeds must be a foot tall, it looks real enchanting, the way it blows in the breeze and it being so brightly colored. It’s an electric lawnmower and it’s cutting capabilities are quite dismal but that just means I get to take my time. I slowly walk behind this thing, minding my overlap and direction as to not run over the extension cord. She points out how crappy the lawnmower is and we laugh some more. This seems to be a normal with her, always laughing at the ridiculousness of life, it is what drew me to her 18 years ago. I continue to cut the grass and I’m not quite sure what Elisa is doing, I’m mowing the lawn – a pastime that most every man holds dear to his heart, I feel like Hank Hill and all I need is Delaiah out here complaining like Bobby.
Elisa takes over mowing, I go in the house to retrieve the battery for the weedwhacker and talk with my Goob, she is not caring for the book she is reading but she reads on desiring a good grade in that class. I tell her I love her and go outside to weed whack. It’s now late in the day and the yard is almost complete, it looks fresh and clean and cared for, as a front yard should. We talk of work and Delaiah and missing Little Dog as we clean up. I go in the house to kiss and hug my little girl and give a hug to Elisa. I walk out the front door and amble down the driveway, rejuvenated and partly sad. Truth is I don’t want to leave, I don’t want to drive home to my empty apartment, make some bogus dinner and thumb through Fakebook on and off while watching the idiot box. I want to watch Delaiah read her book, listen to Elisa exaggerate life in the most comical way possible. I want to sit on my mother’s old couch, the one Elisa got in the divorce, watch a movie while eating dinner with my family. But as much as this is my family and they are my home, it is time for me to go.
This will be one of those days I will get to look back on throughout my life and know what the definition of love is, what unconditional love is, what it feels like to be in love. I never knew it would ever be possible to care so deeply for anyone, to be so attached to something that is not mine. I mean nothing is really mine, everything is on loan from my Higher Power. But still, to be so devoted to someone else’s happiness and getting no compensation in return. To have the purest of joys wash over me just being in the presence of what was. Being in love with watching and knowing and caring. All the while having the reality stare me down that this is just a moment I get to experience, to relive and being beyond grateful for. I don’t know/don’t think Elisa and I will ever reconciliate, I know there will always be someone referring to me as a former stepfather, her grass will always grow and maybe one day someone else will be cutting it. My daughter will move out and start her own life, life will continue on and all I will have are these moments, these memories.
There has always been two sides to me, the one that wanted to wander and the one that wanted a family. I have been blessed to live both but having my family way surpasses the happiness of wandering. And I couldn’t be more grateful for the time spent with my family, all the love and joy, pain and sadness, the days, months and years. I couldn’t be more grateful for the minutes collected in my heart…
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