There are so many things I’ve never said.
When we first got together six years ago, I was only twenty,
and you were the caretaker that I needed in the midst of deep uncertainty about
my life, my future, and my purpose. You let me stay at your apartment. You fed
me when I was hungry. You drove me anywhere I asked because I wasn’t brave
enough to get my own license. You never criticized or questioned the endless
times I changed my mind about everything, from education to childbearing. You saw
my quirks, my fears, my flaws, and genuinely loved me unconditionally,
regardless.
You used to make me breakfast every year on my birthday:
pancakes topped with strawberries and bacon placed strategically to look like a
face smiling up at me from the plate. You knew exactly how I liked my coffee
and brought it to me all milky sweet on the couch or in bed as the sun rose. When
I fractured my shin running and became deeply depressed, you took me out and
walked patiently beside me just to keep me moving, and so I’d know I wasn’t
alone. It was one of the many times that you brought me back to life.
We never needed much; most of our time together we holed up
in little apartments and basement suites with mismatched, second-hand furniture
and lots of books. It was always enough. We loved each other in tiny,
windowless rooms, on the bed you made in high school carpentry class. We spent
our winters under thrift store blankets, watching old movies; our summers were
outside, barbequing and reading in the shade.
You always read all my writing, and listened to me ramble on
endlessly about books I loved that you’d never heard of, characters you couldn’t
possibly understand. You never complained during my weird phases of watching
the same terrible movie or TV show over and over again. You constantly
encouraged and respected me, and told me I could do anything I wanted with my
life. You once saw me in a dress and said I’d ruined you for other women− that
no one could ever be as beautiful as you thought I was.
I told you about how much my dad had disappointed me, and
how scared I was of ending up with someone like him, or even worse, of
becoming him. You told me how you’d always felt like you came in last. We
whispered our insecurities into each other’s ears, and promised we’d never be
like the people who let us down. You said your dream was to be a good husband and father. At night you wrapped your feet around mine
under the blankets.
You worked so hard to take care of us. When you fell
eighteen feet off of a roof at work and almost died, you looked up at me from
the hospital bed with a face caked in blood and assured me that everything was
going to be okay. You squeezed my hand firmly as I dripped hot tears on the sheets.
Then, I worked so hard to take care of us. I pushed you everywhere
in your wheelchair; it became a game to see how far we could go. I picked you
up when your injury broke you down, lifted you to your commode, and helped you
bathe when you’d given up. You learned to walk again, and we went everywhere on
foot, you forsaking a cane to lean on my arm. During your recovery we found out
we were pregnant, and you wrapped the pregnancy test in a Ziploc bag and stored
it in your sock drawer. We learned they were twins and we cried with shock and joy, unable to believe we'd been given such a gift. We got married, and you
limped up the aisle on your bad leg to stand and wait for me.
On our honeymoon you let me sleep away my pregnancy
exhaustion and sickness, giving me all the blankets and pillows so I’d be
comfortable. You ran your fingers across my belly and told stories to our
babies−
from the beginning you swore they were girls. When we were eventually hospitalized
for preterm labour, you slept on a fold-out chair beside my bed for almost a
month. You made me tea every day, and held my hand outside on the hospital patio during
those long days we wicked with sweat and fear. You cleaned my face and stroked
my hair during my emergency C-section, and when the girls were out you slipped
into the NICU to take photos of their tiny, red forms for me. We were so young,
and so unprepared, but you went to the store and bought me a breast pump,
nursing pads, and lanolin without flinching. You helped me get dressed and use
the bathroom for days. After we were discharged without the girls, coming home
to an empty nursery shattered me like nothing had before− I was in such unendurable, heartbroken agony I
thought I would die. You picked me up then as though I were the child, and rocked me for hours, drying my tears with your chest and sleeve. You became the glue that
held all the pieces of me together.
You gave the girls their first baths, and changed their
first diapers because I was too scared to touch them. You drove me to the NICU
in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep because being without my
children felt like a bullet in my guts. When the girls came home, even though you
were working and in school, you got up to feed them with me every two hours
throughout the night. You sanitized every bottle and washed every dish we used
in those early months, and brought me meals while I was pumping or feeding. You
had days where you took care of the girls entirely by yourself, and times where
you took them out because their acid reflux and constant colicky screams made me think about putting my head through a wall.
You respected me as a mother, and never questioned my
choices. You took photos of us at The Old Spaghetti Factory the first time we
were brave enough to take the girls to a restaurant. You eventually got a job
two hours away that kept you working over sixty hours a week, but whenever you
got home you always found the energy to give us your attention and love. You
spent your rare days off grocery shopping, running errands, or at the park with
us, collecting dandelions and putting them in my hair. You crouched down on our living room floor
and called for the girls to walk to you, cheering as they stumbled to your
outstretched arms. You washed their chubby rolls every night, and covered their eyes when you gently rinsed their hair. You’ve always been such a modern man, never implying gender
roles or assuming certain jobs were mine alone.
Somewhere along the line in the last couple years, we began to change. Maybe we put too much into our children and not enough into each
other. Maybe we were too young. Maybe we eventually needed different things. I
grew into my role as a mother and woman, and I didn’t need to be taken care of
anymore. You wondered where you’d gone, what your purpose was without someone
to hold up. When we were no longer in crisis, we didn’t know how to interact;
like war buddies, our bond was easier in the trenches. And as we aged, though our love
never disappeared, the things that kept us together did.
Today, we aren’t a couple anymore, and it still makes me
feel like someone has taken a fillet knife to my insides and cleaned them out. I wonder
sometimes when it was that we stopped being those kids who always found each other in the dark. But I do know that you gave
yourself to me so selflessly for years; that you were my port in a storm, and I
was yours, and because of that my love for you endures. Our love endures,
always. What we had and what we’ve gone through will be forever rooted in me; a
stone monument erected in my heart.
Our separation hasn’t been perfect; we’ve had moments of
anger, disappointment, and disillusionment. And that’s natural. As natural as
falling in love is the pain of falling out of it. But most days, we lock
eyes and remember the sacrifices we’ve made, the anchors we chose to lower
by each other’s side for a time. And just like the simple life we lived once, that’s
enough. That’s all we’ll ever need.
