The Nights are the Hardest

It's a beautiful morning here in sunny Florida. The ocean's a brilliant blue, and the surf is gently curling onto the beach. Safer conditions for swimming. Safer conditions for reflecting on a reality that's haunted me for the past 250 hours. (but who's counting?)

The nights are the hardest.

In our former and all-too-short life together as a family, typically I was up and out of the house before Leslie and TJ got up. Leslie wasn't much of a morning person, and it was all she could do to get herself out of bed-- before she was sick, even-- just to have a cup of coffee and read her bible a little before the rest of her day was consumed caring for, looking after, and keeping up with a very active little boy... and a dog... and a house... and so-on... Evenings and nights were typically Mommy's time off, and I took over. Let her do the things she still had/ wanted to do from the day... tidying up around the house, checking her email, watching a little TV, catching up with a friend on the phone. TJ and I would have so much fun, just being silly, doing our night-time routine... Bath time, basement time (I'd turn on a local seasonal sporting event on the TV, and he and I would play that sport while I half-watched the TV. Regardless of the sporting season, the time usually led to some good wrestling and tickling matches.)... Then story, prayer, and bed-time. Often, Leslie would step in to relieve me-- take over for prayer and rocking, or whatever... but mostly, the evenings were "Daddy time" for TJ. It's probably not much different for most families with "stay-at-home Mom's". (God bless you ladies!!)

Fast forward back to "these days"... Not a whole lot different for TJ, really. Even when considering his life prior to the last few months of Leslie's failing health. But, for me, it's been devastating. I'm realizing how much of what I said and did during those precious hours every night-- the silliness, the games we'd play, what I'd do to wring another joyful giggle from his belly-- I was actually doing for HER. She was always listening-- through the baby monitor that was wired into the kitchen and basement, or just lying there in bed, or doing email on the computer nearby... So much of the fun TJ and I had together was really about making Mommy smile. The first week without her was so hard... especially from the hours of about 7pm until whenever it was that mercy was granted me in the form of sleep. Mornings aren't as bad as I'd expected-- there's so much to do. That energetic little boy to entertain. Breakfast to make. Etc... But these nights...

I've always known how much I needed her around. Not just to raise TJ, "keep the house", etc... But even more so, just for her to be there... the calm and order she brought to my life, and the sense she made of the thoughts that spin around my brain as I reflect on the events of a day... of a life... But I didn't realize just how MUCH I needed her until...

...these nights.

The sadness-- no, sadness isn't the right word. The aching... maybe... the NAUSEA, perhaps, starts setting in about the time TJ gets out of the bathtub and I start putting on his P-J's. It's kind of like the clickity-clank of the lift underneath a roller coaster going up-up-up... my mind uneasily settles into the inevitable fate of the car I'm sitting in as my destination grows closer with every passing second. A lot like that, actually, but that drop (or crash, rather) is not nearly as fun. Not fun at all. Several nights, I've just kept the little guy up a little later, and just go to bed when he does (quite early for me), just so I don't have to experience the "crash" after he's asleep.

It's not normally a teary sadness-- those nights I decide to stay up to endure the "crash", for my own mental health, and to allow my heart to experience this rather than avoid it. No, it's a dry, lonely sadness... this achey nausea in the space somewhere above or beyond my stomach. Crying just seems to distract me, usually. Don't get me wrong... when I'm able, the floodgates open and I don't believe in kleenexes, (farmer's blows and long sleeves-- men, you know what I'm talking about), so it can get really, really messy. But for the most part, I just sit there and stare, dry-eyed. At the stars, at the ceiling fan, the wall maybe...

A couple nights ago, after TJ went to sleep, I sat on the balcony of the condo with a cigar and sip of my favorite adult beverage. I figured I was long overdue, so I let my mind go and let my heart follow wherever it wandered. The crescent moon set in the west earlier that evening, so the view over the Atlantic was so dark that night, which was only accentuated by the humid haze that was setting in over the water. The stars were barely visible, but as my eyes adjusted to the night, I began to notice more and more of them. It was a calm night, and the surf was soft. But due to the moonless haze, the ocean seemed to disappear beyond the breakers. In fact, there was no horizon that was visible. The ocean faded into the sky seamlessly... as if I could swim all the way up to the stars if I just took the elevator down to the beach right then and there. I was tempted. TJ sleeping in the back room kept me where I was. So I just sat there and looked at the stars and listened to the waves.

There is something calming knowing that the same God who hung the stars in their place and gave them a name long before our forefathers of "science" did, is the same God who knows every molecule of water and salt in every wave as it meets the shore... and He's the same God who was right there beside me, helping the soothing salt and water of my tears grow and roll down my neck. Yet, so lonely to think... where IS she right now? Where is Heaven? Further than the stars? I know in the eternal sense of things she's not very far... but for me, where I sit... "...beyond our galaxy..."??? Really? But those stars are so far away! "I miss you, Baby," is all I could say. "You should be here right now. Sitting here with me. Listening to the waves." She loved those kinds of nights. She'd even put up with some occasional cigar smoke-- just wouldn't kiss me afterword. But I didn't mind so much. It was just so right-- so perfect-- to share those nights with her. I know she's still "here" in some sense. But we all know it's just not nearly the same thing. That's why we cry at funerals.

I'd do anything for a few more of those kiss-less nights, just to have her sitting there with me on that balcony, imagining together about swimming beyond the breakers until we reached the stars...

...the nights are the hardest.