Milestones

The boys both had their science fairs this week: Charlie’s was on Wednesday, Jackson’s on Thursday.

The days leading up to the science fairs were rough. I kept telling them to work on their science projects, and I offered to help or to find a place for them to spread out and have more room to work, or to print out whatever they need for their boards. But the day before their respective science fairs, both projects were still unfinished.

I was already on edge. I started the week thinking about how Thursday would mark three months since Andy died: the first quarter of the world without Andy.

I counted down in the days leading up to it, as if it were the Times Square ball drop but the ball was a ton of lead and I was standing under it.

On Wednesday, I took Charlie to his science fair; he’d finished the tri-fold poster that afternoon at school. Later, when I took him back to school for the science fair, we sat in the car for a while so he could quell his anxiety before going in.

Jackson stayed home to work on his tri-fold. (Spoiler: he did not work on it until after Charlie and I came home.)

I was dreading Charlie’s science fair the most because I’ve been to one school event alone since Andy died and I felt awkward and lonely when I was there. I tried to socialize with the parents and teachers I know, but I couldn’t focus on the conversations. I was too busy thinking about how Andy was missing this, and every other school event the boys would ever have.

Even after we separated we still went to every school event together. He loved going to them. At the science fair, he always checked out every single project and listened to each student’s spiel about their work. I would take breaks and find excuses to go out into the hall and look at some of the artwork. I liked seeing the boys’ projects, but I wasn’t interested enough to look at the other kids’ work.

And this year, Charlie did a linguistics experiment for his science fair project, and it was one that he and Andy had talked about, and I know it was inspired by something Andy had noted years ago: how Vermonters drop double t’s in words.

Mitten.

Kitten.

Button.

Say those aloud to yourself.

Then say them with a glottal stop. (That is, without pronouncing the “tt” in the middle.) It’s a bit like a cockney accent.

Charlie asked adults and other students from Vermont to say a list of words (including the three I listed), and then analyzed information about who dropped their t’s and who didn’t. (He found that younger Vermonters were less likely to do it.)

So I knew the science fair was going to be hard for me, because Andy wouldn’t be there, and Charlie would be doing an experiment that Andy would be especially interested in. And I knew the fairs would be difficult for Charlie and Jackson because Andy wouldn’t be there.

But I was unprepared for how quickly after arrival I had to find a quiet place at the end of an empty hallway so I could sob for a while.

And the next night, exactly three months after Andy died, we went to Jackson’s science fair. I figured that would be easier because it was a new school for Jackson, and Andy had never gone to that science fair.

Jackson’s experiment was about studying how chocolate chip cookies turned out with baking soda vs baking powder, which was very similar to one he’d done at his old school. Andy had been an enthusiastic supporter of that project. He loved Jackson’s chocolate chip cookies.

But that science fair wasn’t any easier for me. Jackson’s school is a lot bigger and there were fewer private spaces and I didn’t know where the bathrooms were, so I walked/ran through the halls, hoping I could hold back the tears long enough, and I found a bathroom just in time and ducked into a stall and sobbed in there for a while.

I know there will be more of this. There will be milestones that I expect to be difficult, and they will be. And there will be memories that knock me down without warning. At this point they are getting harder instead of easier.

The boys aren’t having the episodes that sneak up on them; they are sad some days, and they talk about Andy, but the bereavement coach and the therapists tells me it will probably take longer for them to grasp the enormity of this. I know I haven’t yet.

I was in such shock for the first couple of months that I was numb, and I had too much to do to let myself feel anything. As I told my therapist the other day, I’m really good at compartmentalizing.

We know what that really means: that I’m really good at ignoring my feelings for long enough that I can’t even recognize them until they ambush me to get my attention.

So as I keep finding myself crying in bathrooms and deserted hallways, I follow my therapist’s advice and I breathe through it and try to identify what emotions I am feeling.

Sadness. Anger. Sorrow. Rage. Guilt. Gratitude.

That last one surprised me. I discovered that one in therapy, when I was talking about the trauma of Andy’s last days and how I wished I could have done more, and was afraid I hadn’t done enough. And then we talked about how we had time to say goodbye to him, and that even though it wasn’t enough time, it was more time than a lot of people get, and I was grateful for that. And that so many people were able to call and visit and text and tell him what he meant to them, and I’m grateful he got to hear that at the end. And in those last days, Andy and I had some of the most truthful and loving conversations we’d ever had. And I am grateful we had that.

But so far, sadness and anger and sorrow and rage and guilt are more prevalent.

My therapist tells me that grief doesn’t go away: that we learn to live with it. And I know that’s true because I live with the grief for my cousin Terence, who died by suicide when he was eighteen years old. And for other loved ones I’ve lost, and especially for my dad. But this is so much harder. I am living with my grief for Andy, and with my grief that Jackson and Charlie had their time with him cut so short.