On October 14th Erica and I celebrated 19 years of marriage. 19 years of marriage, while significant, is one of those anniversaries that can easily get lost. The 1st, 25th, 40th and 50th anniversary are touchpoints in the life of a married couple and are typically marked by lavish gifts and trips to exotic places. On Tuesday I told Erica, "I didn't get you a card and I don't expect one in return." She replied similarly and we agreed to have dinner* that night while Leah attended her first acting class.
*By the way - we had dinner at Sunspot on the Cumberland Avenue Strip. The 'Strip, as its affectionately known to UT students, alumni and Knoxville residents is a mile long drag of bars and restaurants. Excuse me, the Strip "was" a mile long road of dive bars and restaurants that have been replaced with high rise condos, banks and more condos and holds the charm of a root canal. And I'm pretty sure the entire wait staff was on drugs. I'm getting old. But I digress.
Before dinner Erica and I toasted with the simple, "What a year.." we both shrugged and sipped our drinks in silence for a moment. When you take your vows you hear the spiel about sickness and health, richer or poorer, but you don't get the "In the event you lose a child". I assume that's covered under the "for better or worse" portion of the vows and if ever replaced with "in the event you lose a child" would likely cast a pall over what's typically a happy occasion.
We were married really young, too young actually. I was 24 and Erica was just barely 23. We had no money, no idea how to plan and execute a wedding and no idea the work it took to build a successful life together. And we certainly had no idea what lay ahead for us. We spent the first 7 years of our marriage in Nashville but moved back to Knoxville in March of 2012 mere weeks before Kyle arrived. Once again - we had little money, a ton of debt and no idea on how to raise a baby.
But much like the first few years of our marriage, we figured out how to raise Kyle and eventually decided to try for another. Homes were purchased, credit cards got paid (and closed) and we settled into what we assumed would be a normal suburban life.
I'm not going to rehash the events surrounding Kyles death, but I will say this. Those first few days were very dark. And at times, moments of doubt creep in and you find your mind wandering into a deep pool of grief. But when you share a life with someone who knows exactly what you feel, you no longer feel isolated in your pain.
Like two great athletes on the field of play who can just read each others eyes and know exactly what to do, such is the connection Erica and I now share. If cohabitating for over 20 years, multiple moves and raising kids doesn't form an unbreakable bond then imagine what grieving the loss of a child can do. It can go one of two ways and one of them is filled with even more pain and more ugliness. When you see someone suffering your first reaction is to console them using words. Platitudes such as, "I'm so sorry for your loss" or "He's in a better place" get thrown around grieving loved ones like frisbees, but it's more to break the uncomfortable tension in a room. Those that know true suffering just want to emote and it's best to sit in the room next to them in silence then offer up any advice. Sometimes one of us will walk into a room and the other will be crying or finishing crying. And the other will simply walk up, hug the other and say nothing. I urge you to try substituting physical touch for words to someone grieving next time and see if it doesn't make a difference.
We miss Kyle so much. Charles Dickens couldn't articulate what Kyle meant to us and he got paid by the word. A few weeks ago I saw a picture of Kyle in Leah's room and it broke me. I sat on the stairs crying. Erica walked up and I said to her, "What is the point of all this? What is the meaning behind his death? I do not understand." To which erica replied, "Maybe he died to teach us a lesson." But what would that lesson be? That we can take a punch?
Here's what I do know, of all the people in my life there is no one that understands me more than Erica. There is no one that has impacted my life more greatly than her and there is no one stronger than her. She'd shrug off that last comment and give credit to advancements in modern pharmacology, but you can't build anything without a strong foundation. And Erica's constitution is solid.
When we were first married she used to say, "I don't think I'd be a good mother." I took that comment with a grain of salt knowing that she was put on this planet to raise Kyle and Leah. She did everything she could for him and then it was his time to go be with someone else in another dimension. And as desperately as we miss him, we choose to allow his death to not be in vain but rather as a deep emotional bond to carry us for another 19 years and beyond.
