taking care of myself the way that you would

Everyone tells me they don’t know how I do it. But the truth is, I just try to do everything as you would.

I know you weren’t perfect, but you absolutely never cut corners or did something half assed. If you had a responsibility, you were going to fulfill it. The right way. I don’t think I ever heard you say you “didn’t feel” like doing something. If you agreed to do it, whether it was going to work or cooking dinner or painting a room, you did it. From start to finish, without complaint.

When it came to taking care of us, you were superhuman. Especially in the last year before you died, all of which I spent pregnant and then postpartum, you often knew what I needed before I did. You took over all my chores, you picked up my prescriptions, you filled my water bottles (one for every floor) and replaced the ice. You cooked dinner, you shopped for and put away all the groceries, you stocked up our freezer with stuff that was quick and easy. You made me sandwiches and mixed me mocktails and drove me to my doctor’s appointments. And not once, not ever, did you act like it was an inconvenience.

I have always been terrible at taking care of myself. I’m slightly better at taking care of others, but even then, before I met you I didn’t really know how to do the most basic tasks. I couldn’t cook or clean, I had no routines or handiness skills. You taught me how to know which screwdriver to use and how often to get an oil change and how to brown ground beef. You were so patient when I was a complete idiot.

So how do I do it? I pretend I’m you. The other night, we were all getting over colds and I thought about how the humidifier would probably help a lot overnight. But I was already in bed and feeling lazy and decided it was easier to just suffer without it. I knew you would’ve filled it if we needed it, even if you were already in bed, or even if it had been in the middle of the night. So I got up and filled it and plugged it in next to our beds. Sometimes I don’t think it’s worth it to make myself dinner, but I know you would’ve taken the time to make me exactly what I wanted no matter what. So I make the salad or bake the chicken or cut the vegetables. Sometimes I don’t feel like playing with Axl or the baby has been up all night, but I think about how you would handle those things. How you would get down on the floor regardless and build the tallest block tower of all time, or how you would just scoop the baby up and rock him again and sing him a silly song until he fell back asleep. 

You were always the levity to my storm clouds. To my catastrophizing.
When we were going through a particularly rough financial patch a couple years ago and I was starting to spiral over the “what ifs,” you said, “Baby, I don’t care what happens, as long as we’re facing it together.” I’ve thought a lot about that since you died, at first with a bitterness over the fact I’m now doing it alone, but now with a strange assurance that… we still are facing it together. Whether we’re on completely different planes of existence. I’m still vowing to do things in your honor, things that would make you proud. It’s because of you that I am living this life I am living and feeling the peace that I feel despite the circumstances. You taught me how to thrive, and it would be such a waste to give that up now. It’s like our love and life and family was a garden that we tended to for years together. I refuse to let it wither just because you aren’t here. I might not have the green thumb like you did, but I know I can water us and plant new seeds for us and keep us growing. Weeds and all. Maybe that’s enough.