Fucking August, Man

Originally posted at The Way of the Rose 54-Day Novena Facebook group August 16, 2020

Novena Day 4

The Joyful Mysteries

The central mystery of the Joyful Mysteries is the Nativity. The birth of Jesus, Mary’s creation. It also happens to be THE mystery that is most fraught for me.

Yesterday, I posted a picture of me with my newborn son Zane. Tomorrow is Zane’s 18th birthday. And Wednesday is the 18th anniversary of his death. You can probably imagine the kind of trauma that resulted from birth succeeded so rapidly by death. You can’t, however, imagine the depth unless you’ve been through it.

For the past 18 years, August has been the “season of Zane” for me. But August didn’t leave it at that. On the seventh anniversary of Zane’s death, I discovered that my husband, the man I’d thought was the soulmate I would live with forever, was having an affair. We separated that day.

We managed to build a deep and abiding friendship out of the wreckage of our marriage, but we never reconciled, and there are times I still grieve what might have been.

Then, three years ago, after agreeing to write a book about our relationship with me, Bill got sick. After a difficult and dramatic year, he died on his birthday, August 31.

Now you know why I say, “Fucking August, man.”

I volunteered to be a guide for the last novena, but Perdita said, “You’ll lead off the next one,” and I said okay. Then I looked at the calendar. Uh, oh. That wouldn’t just be August, it would run right through the season of Zane. When she forgot about it and asked for volunteers, I could have gotten out of it if I’d wanted. But I went for one of my rosary walks, and Mama Mary prompted me to my first two posts, basically telling me, “You’re up, kid. No worries. We got this.”

But she didn’t tell me what to write today, and that scares me. I think it means that I’m to take a deep breath and walk this blind, knowing she is by my side, holding my hand.

Remember the “big ask” I mentioned on day 1? My first novena petition, the impossible one I hardly dared think about? I’m crying even thinking about it. You see, I wrote the book myself when Bill died: The Water Is Wide: A True Love Story. My first novena petition was that it would be a bestseller.

It felt selfish and arrogant, and I hardly dared say it out loud on the rosary calls. But it was my heart’s desire. And still is.

Bill and I were so happy together in the beginning (“No Two People Have Ever Been So in Love” is the chapter title). Difficulties crept in, nothing we couldn’t handle gracefully. But then Zane came and went. There is very little harder for any couple to navigate than the death of a child. Compound that with pregnancy loss and infertility, and you have a perfect storm. Add a cliched midlife crisis and serious autoimmune disease, and you have the ingredients for high drama.

And, oh, did we have drama.

So how did we get to the point that it was me he called when he thought he might need someone to help him end the pain forever, and it was me that didn’t hesitate to say yes? How does a couple go through all those traumas and dramas and still care for each other that much? That’s what the book is about—our journey through the pain to the other side of love.

I went back to the book this past month, my creation, with Mama Mary holding my hand. It was pretty raw when I wrote it, and it was hard to force myself to go through it all again to revise and polish. But I’ve done it; it’s very, very close to being ready to send out. This week I write a proposal.

Another “birth” looms on the horizon, only this time it’s my literary creation. I guess it’s no wonder I’m scared. But I have to let go of the traumas to clear the way for joy, right?

Bill found the StoryPeople print that accompanies this post in a country store sometime in the first year or two we were together: “For a long time, she flew only when she thought no one else was watching.” That was me, he said. He wanted me to know that he would be watching and cheering me on.

I know he’s cheering me on now—sometimes it even feels like he’s kicking me out of the nest:

“It’s time to fly, Zoey.”