How To Love A Single Mom

Writer’s Note:

Two years after the tragic death of her husband and father of her children, Leah, a 35 year old single mother of two young daughters continues to struggle with her loss. Follow Leah as she begins to heal, reveals her purpose, discover her passion and find love in the process. 

How To Love A Single Mom is a love story about life, self discovery, transformation and the relationships we create along the way. 

Chapter 1~

It’s Monday evening at 6:03 PM. I know the exact time because I’m staring at the cable box. I’m on the floor curled in a ball, sobbing. I had no choice but to hold it in until now.

I hate holding it in because there’s always a consequence for restricting my heart. The grief retaliates, becoming enraged and violent. I’m proof, here I am, a puddle of despair; it’s pathetic.

I thought the first days, the first months, the first year was the most difficult; I was wrong.

It hit me as I was preparing dinner. I tried to ignore the anxious churn in my belly as I drained their pasta. I choked back the sadness as I made lunches for tomorrow. I silenced the shouting panic as we sat at the dinner table.

I could tell they were in a hurry.  I think they dread dinnertime as much as I do.

 “Mom? Mom?!”

I was sealed inside my thoughts. I couldn’t hear her.

 “Yes honey? I’m sorry Mommy was thinking.”

 “We’re done. Can we go play now?”

 “Ok. Just prop the door open so I can hear you.”

 “Ok!”

Off they went to meet the kids next door. It’s easy for them to make friends at this age. Children have two things in common—freedom and innocence. I envy them.

I stayed at the table surveying my reality. Alone, expect for two bowls of half eaten pasta and the jumbalaya of thoughts stirring in my head.

I wondered if the kids feel the void as much as I do. If they feel the absence, they must. I blame myself. I’m failing them, falling short, an entire Y chromosome short.

It’s been two years since the accident, but it feels like yesterday. Most days I manage, I get by and then there are the days I’m drowning and I’d be ok if I actually did.

Today is one of those days. I don’t want to do this life alone anymore. I’ve had this thought over and over yet I’m still here.

What carries me through is not the acceptance of reality but the hope my dreams provide.

My fantasies are like oxygen; they keep me alive. Like right now, as I scrub the ricotta off the forks.

He’s here with me. Behind me. He loved to sneak up on me even though I could hear him. It was our game. I was usually in the kitchen when he came home.  His hands gripped me, not in a controlling way but a protective way. He always had me, he still does, I can feel his grasp.

“Mom! Water please!”  Sasha’s standing at the door gasping for air.

“Hold on, I’m coming.”  It felt so real this time. I couldn’t shake it like I normally do.

I hand her a water bottle. “We are gonna go play in their backyard, just for a few minutes, ok?”

I didn’t have the energy to say no. I nodded.

The sadness was frothing in my throat, my eyes burning.

I walked into the living room, sat in the middle of the floor and lied down. The ground always brings me comfort;  hard concrete, wood, grass, gravel, it doesn’t matter, it helps me feel safe.

Through the haze of tears I spot a rogue chip under the couch, a strand of Brooke’s blonde hair a foot away, and the stain from the wine I spilled that night I had my girlfriends over. Leftovers of the life I live; a life that I wish I could enjoy, but my joy disappeared the day he died.

“You are too old to act like this and too young to feel like this.” I scold myself. I sit up. I anticipate this moment. Opening the lid to my computer, my fingers paused on the centerline of my keyboard. I never know what I’ll write, all I know is, if I don’t I’ll die.

The tremors begin, the pre-shock before the quake of words that rattle through me onto the screen…

 

I remember you. The person who looks like a woman but feels like a girl.

I want you to know the crippling doubt, guilt and sadness is now in the past. 

I know, you are scared all of the time. Scared you’re failing. Listen. Please listen to me closely…

Do something and fail. Once you fail, fail again. Fail because it is the only way to know your weakness and your strengths in the same breath. Fail because it’s the only choice if you want to know the opposite of failure.

Yes my child, fail like you’ve never failed before, please I beg of you, for me your hero. I can’t be your hero without your failure.

Your failure is my measuring stick.  

Fail and fall. Fall, fall hard, fall slow, fall swiftly. I don’t care, just fall, fall like you are the fall, not a victim of it. 

Fall free and then you will understand when you land at the bottom, you’ve landed at the top.

Did you know that? The bottom is the beginning.

I want you to go all the way down to the depths of the what ifs. What ifs don’t exist to the courageous.

Stop holding back. Stop living like life is something fragile. It’s not fragile and neither are you. No, you are far from fragile and the day you break is the day you mend.

The broken are the saved. The break is the fix.

You won’t know this until you get there. Just trust me. Will you trust me? You don’t like to trust, that’s the problem.

You trusted the unbroken ones, the ones who never fail and never fall. They’ve led you astray. That’s why you hold on.

There’s one reason you won’t let go, you are petrified of letting everyone down, but you are incapable of letting anyone down. You are too soft for that. You are strong but you are soft. You love too much which you know is the only way to love.

You lift people up, you don’t let them down.

You have misjudged something. You can’t hold anyone up because if you do, you will sink and you have already sunk in your grief to the outskirts where you don’t belong. That my child is the reason for this feeling, “I don’t belong.” It is the cause of your despair. Your greatest virtue will be your demise.

You are too generous with your heart, so generous you’ve given it all away, you don’t even know who you are anymore. You feel left, alone. You are lonely. Your loneliness can be accompanied if you allow it to be.

You do belong, you belong more than you will ever know. You’re displaced like spilled milk. It belonged in the cup and you knew it, that’s why you cried when it spilled. You spill your heart when you should be protecting it, guarding it fiercely. Stop giving it away. Here. You are always here for everyone even in your grief.

They call you from the corners of the Earth. Do you know why? They call you because you are the only one who answers. And do you know why? Because you are the one who hears their call because you can, but here’s a lesson you must learn—

The only call you should be concerned with answering is your own, but you can’t hear it if you are only listening to theirs. Stop. Just stop.

Be the warrior you were brought here to be. Start to move, move away from the pain. You didn’t die, he did. so move, don’t push, just move, you can do that, in between them, maybe hold a hand, give a hug along the way.

Move into the middle and then walk past the middle to the other side and then jump. Jump like you are leaping into your mother’s arms and smile. Smile because you just let go, like really let go.

Here’s another lesson, letting go doesn’t happen in your mind it happens in your heart and if you fight your heart, you will be hurt ever so badly.

If you try to let go, you won’t. You can’t. You can’t tell the heart when to release. She releases when she is ready. The heart is the neck. The mind is the head. The heart turns the head. So listen, listen closely to the call, not the scream, but the call.

When she calls, answer, and then jump.

Jump into yourself. Jump into happiness. The happiness awaiting you. Your happiness belongs to you like your fingerprints do, so stop comparing now.

Do you hear me? Stop it. It will pull you as far away from me as you could travel. Compare yourself to your past self only, it’s how you will know how far you’ve come and how far you have yet to go. Remember? Your grief is unlike anyone else’s. Just like your happiness. You don’t have to be any farther along than you are right now; you are perfect in your despair. 

Hear me. I need you to hear me. You are already a hero, to that girl, the girl from two years ago who sat on the cold floor in the bathroom with her palms pressed to her eyelids, glaring into the stars she created with her confusion.

“Where do I go? What do I do? How do I go on?”

She prayed, she begged for her hero to arrive, to tell her what to do, but you didn’t, you were patient.

You allowed her to panic, to freeze, to melt into the pain until she found the ledge and she jumped because she had faith she would fall into your arms.

She is you and I am you, awaiting your arrival.

Please, be patient and be brave. I will be here, I promise but right now it’s time to get up. Get up.

 

I shut my computer and walked into the kitchen, to the sink, turned the water on cold, cupping it in my hands. My fingers sore from typing so quickly. As I press my face to the water, I hear the girls shut the door. Lifting my head, water dripping down my neck, soaking my t-shirt, I could feel his hand around my waist.

“Mom, we’re home!” 

I’m not sure if the smile broke through my lips, but I am smiling. I’m not alone, not even close. And just like that, I let go of the grief, at least for today.