Sharp

I’m lying awake in bed.

Scenes are flashing through my mind. I don’t know if it’s the wine or the chronic insomnia.

Or the chronic.

Or the recent death in the family.

You know those old timey picture lenses? You put them up to your eyes like binoculars and flick a switch up at the top? You flick it and the image changes?

*Flick.*

I was there but I don’t remember it. It’s been recounted often enough I can still describe it.

I was born blue. Some type of oxygen deprivation. My mother looked at the doctor and yelled. “SHE’S BLUE! She’s supposed to be PINK. Make her PINK!!!”

The doctors eventually did make me pink because I don’t have any lasting side effects of that event.

My mother can be very persuasive.

When things get especially important, we are sharp. Curves scare us.

*Flick.*

I sat in math class in eighth grade. School was hard for me. Not the classes. This math class was the most advanced one offered. Academics were easy. It was people I had the hardest time with. And I was especially having trouble that day with Delia.

I’m able to say today that I’m bisexual. But in my AP math class in a hick town in the early aughts, all I could think about my eyes being drawn to Delia’s curves was what’s wrong with me.

Bell bottoms were in that year. The bottoms of her jeans curled into themselves to her knees then spread out again to the sides of her hips. It did occur to me at the time that I might be gay, but I figured it wasn’t possible because I did also find myself attracted to boys. Give me an overcolgned dude in a tank top shooting hoops in the gym and I was just as likely to start drooling as I was while staring into Delia’s large round brown eyes.

I chose to ignore that my gaze fell onto the tops of womens’ cleavage when I wasn’t on guard. I ignored the flutter in my gut in my early twenties after my divorce, when the curvy tattooed woman at the bakery across the street made eye contact longer than was natural.

I told myself to ignore the curves. They were too scary.

*Flick.*

I have a very good dude friend. Everyone asks why we aren’t dating.

The short answer is we are both taken. The long answer is alright we talked about it when we were single.

Yes, he’s handsome. Yes, I feel safe and loved around him. Yes we bicker like an old couple, we make each other laugh and we fully have plans to live together as old people if we end up otherwise alone. But we just don’t like each other like that. I don’t know what to say. We had one day where we tried to pretend like we were on a date and it was awkward and awful and he and I both thank God every day we went back to being non-biological brother and sister.

This dude is chill as a cucumber. This is one of many things we do NOT have in common.

He’s always nice and calm, an almost incessntaly stoned surfer dude. I, on the other hand, am perpetually tense and angry.

I have seen him lose his temper twice.

I got fired about five years ago from one of my first really professional (non-retail or temporary) jobs. He and I were working together and basically I told the owner of the company I disagreed with him (ok I may have chewed him out via text for being unethical to clients I cared about) and he fired me.

I called my friend and he of course said he would have handled it differently but was immediately defensive of me. He yelled into the phone, “This isn’t fair! Desi, I have a plan. I’ve been thinking about it. Here’s what you do. You just walk in there with a set of balls.”

-He paused here while he heard what he had just said.

“Shit. You’re a chick. What’s that Betty White quote? ‘Balls are fragile, vaginas are tough, vaginas can take a beating.’ You walk in there with a vagina.”

-He heard himself again.

“Ok. That sounded bad. But you know what I mean. You walk in there and you- you just be Desi. And you say-”

I cut him off, told him I wasn’t interested in getting my job back, and talked him off the ledge.

*Flick.*

I am the second kid in my family but the first my mom biologically birthed. She has always said, “The second you came out of my body I immediately had this overwhelming urge to put my arms around you and yell, ‘Nobody is allowed to harm this baby. BACK OFF.’”

*Flick.*

I’m sitting in the yard in my sleeping bag. It’s a hot late spring night.

I grew up in the country. Like, twenty-minutes-from-the-nearest-grocery-store country. So my small city yard isn’t the expansive woods I’m used to camping near and the traffic noises are nothing as lulling as the crickets and midnight trains on the breeze of hot nights this time of year in my youth, but I’m still marvelling at the bright stars in the sky.

My partner’s dog is near me in the yard. He’s a 13 year old schnauzer in end-stage heart failure. He’s declined his meds for the last two days and stopped eating, even treats. We have an appointment to put him down later this week but I’m out in the yard tonight to be with him in case he passes sooner than we expected.

I’m listening to him struggle to catch his breath, reminding myself I’ve done all I can for him for now, and thinking this would actually be a really lovely night to die.

*Flick.*

When he was a teenager, something happened to my brother. It’s not my story to tell, but to summarize, his life was threatened.

My parents had divorced a few years earlier but had remained close for the sake of co-parenting and, honestly, friendship. Together, they confronted the man who had threatened my brother, a local realtor. My dad says he had to physically keep my mother from attacking the man with her bare hands. The man moved within a few months. My mother can be very persuasive.

*Flick.*

I don’t have any biological kids. I always pictured myself aging in a cabin on the water. My home would have large windows overlooking the sound or some lake or river. I would open them to the sun in the mornings, drinking coffee on my deck with a book and switching to wine earlier in the afternoon than I should. I’d take a nap then a bath and retire to my study with a cat and a dog and sit among my travel souvenirs to write.

But life had different plans.

I have spent half my evenings the last few months talking my step daughter through one heartbreak after another. She’s young but she feels each loss so seriously. She cries on the phone from her mom’s house in another state.

It’s so hard to know what to say. I feel like an imbecile. I just keep repeating to her, “I’ve been through this. It hurts so badly right now I know, but I promise it gets better with time. You’re doing great, I love you.”

*Flick.*

I’m crying on the couch. Our dog hasn’t gotten any better. It’s my partner’s turn to spend the night outside with him. He asks if he can do anything to help with my pain before he leaves. I tell him I really just want to call my dad.

My dad watches me cry over facetime. His face is full of empathy, he put a dog down six months ago. He says, “I’ve been through this. It hurts so badly right now I know, but I promise it gets better with time. You’re doing great, I love you.”

*Flick.*

I was drinking beer on the awning with my friend and his new roommate a couple years ago. I'd told him this is a bad match, this guy gave me a bad vibe. He said I know he can be annoying at times but I’ve been surfing with him for years, he’s not that bad.

I’m known for talking. I talk too much. That’s why I started writing. So I can talk and talk and talk as much as I want but no one can interrupt me once I publish it.

New roomie didn’t love that about me. We were listening to some relatively obscure punk rock and he hears the beginning of a song and stands up. He turns the volume up and begins performing the song. At me. Like he’s on the stage at a concert.

The lyrics are something along the lines of, “You talk about yourself all the time, why do you talk about yourself so much?!?”

The song ends. New roomie sits down. Josh stares at the concrete for a beat. Then he stands up. His face is red. This calm stoner has become irate.

He starts yelling at his surfing buddy. There are F-bombs flying and I’m hearing, “She is my friend! Yes she talks a lot who cares?? You do NOT get to treat her like that!!!”

*Flick.*

I’m texting people about the dog, how he’s not getting better and we have an appointment for euthanasia. Everyone responds with heart emojis and comforting words but my mother texts back the only words any pet owner needs to hear at that time: I think you’re doing the right thing.

*Flick.*

I’m in the park at work a few years ago. I am here to watch a client, a young man with disabilities who is physically 21 but behind emotionally and intellectually enough to at times act like a seven year old.

His favorite thing to do is sit on the swings with his headphones in and sing. He’s not a talented musician. But it gets out some of his anger at the abuse and he feels so much better after.

I see some children on the other side of the playground mocking him. He is really into his music and can’t hear them but they are yelling the lyrics back at him and laughing. I walk up to these kids.

“Hey, where are your parents?”

The kid points to a group of adults not paying attention across the way.

I said, “Ok, how do you think they would feel if I asked them why their kids thought it was ok to mock a person with disabilties?”

The kids stared at me.

I said, “I’m going to go ask them that the next time I see you messing with my friend.”

The kids nodded. I walked away. I’m pretty sure I heard them cry as I left.

When I was gathering our things with my client that night on the way to the car he said, “Those kids were making fun of me weren’t they?”

I lied to him. I said, “Aw naw, that wasn’t it. Pick up that sweatshirt will ya, let’s go back to the house and have dinner.”

*Flick.*

I’m at the funeral of a client. He was a sweet older man who had died too young of a heart attack. The gathering is small. His sister, whom I’ve always liked, is hosting. Her very elderly dad is in attendance and I grieve not only for my client but for the man burying his child. The only other attendees, most of the attendees, are paid professionals who worked with him.

His sister cries next to me across the aisle. She confesses to me, “I’m awful. I’m an awful sister. I-I only live in Seattle. I could have visited more. He had no one. He-I-I’m awful.”

I took her hands and looked her in the eyes. “You were a wonderful sister. That man adored you. You came when you could, we all saw it and we all appreciated it. Tell me, what amount of visiting would have been good? What would have been enough?”

She smiled and said, “I don’t know.”

“Exactly,” I said. “He was so loved. He knew that. You could have visited every day and still felt you didn’t do enough. You were wonderful. Thank you so much for being such a good family member to our dear old man.”

She cried and squeezed my hands.

*Flick.*

My aunt passed this year. She had no biological children; she’d been in a car accident as a teenager leaving her a quadraplegic (unable to use all four limbs). My mom had taken care of her on weekends when I was young so I always tried to treat her like a third parent.

Aunt JJ was funny and feisty. She was kind and loved me. I brought her home a souvenir koala bracelet from Australia when I was 11 and when I went to visit her last year as an adult she was often wearing it, even though it had lost a few of the opals over time.

When I moved to the city I thought I’d visit her twice a week. Tuesdays and Thursdays or Mondays and Wednesdays. But then plans with friends happened or I was tired and I thought I had time.

When she passed this summer I cried to my partner. “I am an awful niece!!! I never visited her! I should have been up there every day. Why did I think I had time? Why did I waste so much TIME?!”

My partner said, “You were a wonderful niece. Your aunt adored you. You came when you could, we all saw it and she appreciated it. Tell me, what amount of visiting would have been good? What would have been enough?”

*Flick.*

We’re driving down a highway in East Texas. I’m fuming.

“But Jim,” I repeat to my partner, “There is no way we will get there before nine, which is her bedtime!”

He looks at me with manic eyes and says, “We could hit no traffic and make better time!”

I had landed in Dallas four hours later than I had planned. I had put the ticket under my current name but the ID I had still had my married name and I’d missed our flight dealing with the damage. I hadn’t thought it had been that big of a deal; I’d gotten a later flight with no charge and was just a few hours late. My partner was normally a calm and very sweet man so I had no idea why he was so mad at me and why he seemed to no longer be able to tell time.

We went back and forth about how I thought we should tell his ex-wife we’d be there after his kid’s bedtime and pick her up in the morning instead, and he insisted we “could still make it.”

Eventually I yelled, “WHY ARE YOU BEING SO UNREASONABLE?”

He yelled back, “I JUST WANT TO SEE MY KID!!!!!!!!”

*Flick.*

I met his daughter at Christmas. I thought it was too soon, we’d only started dating in October. But he said, “You don’t know who I am until you see me with me kid,” and his kind brown eyes melted me into saying yes.

It was going well. Like too well. She was 9 and she should hate me right? But she was sweet and kind and seemed to take a liking to me fast. It kind of freaked me out.

I make jokes when I’m nervous; I was half nervous, half comfortable and half self-medicated on social-anxiety-wine when I made a joke about my new boyfriend being, “a bad dad,” for something silly.

This little girl stared at me with stone eyes, she sat up straight, brushed her tumbling curls from her face and said to me, “My. Dad. Is. Not. A. Bad. Dad. He. Is. The. Best. Dad. Ever.” She stared at me, unblinking, daring me to make my case.

I apologized to her profusely and had a small panic attack in the bathroom.

*Flick.*

I had a dream. I was with my parents, we were in an RV on vacation, blah blah blah. At one point I see Rufus. He’s whiter than usual, like he’s been bathed and bleached. He’s wet from the bath. He’s always happy after a bath. Never during, but after he knows Desi lets him run free and Dad gives him treats and he feels SO HANDSOME.

In my dream, he runs up to me to snuggle. This is odd because I’m definitely not his favorite human. He appreciates my presence of course. But it’s DAD he snuggles with. I pet him back and tell him he’s a good boy. He looks me in the eyes and I hear, “I’m ok. Thank you so much for everything. I know you love me, I love you too. I’m good here.”

I wake up, feeling the hangover of the dream mixing with the hangover from the wine last night while I couldn’t sleep. My partner is finally asleep next to me but I went to bed at four, tapping out of trying to wait for him to come in from staying up with the dog.

I walk outside but I already know what I will find. He laying under our canopy in the sun. His ear is propped up like it does when he’s exhausted and just too cozy to bother flopping it back. His chest isn’t moving. I swat some flies away and set my hand near his heart just in case. No beat.

My mind switches to taking-care-of-it mode. I need to tell Jim.

I walk into the kitchen and look around. How am I supposed to tell Jim his dog of 13 years has just died in our front yard? I think back to when my dog died, and wrack my brain for anything that could have even come close to making me feel better at the time. I remember my dad stopping at the corner store after putting my dog down and walking out with his arms overflowing with bottles of wine.

I need alcohol. We are out of beer or whisky so my choices are some cheap wine we bought last week for sangria or I could mix a margarita. It’s 11am. I pour two hearty glasses of wine.

I walk into our bedroom and I quietly say, “Hey Honey. I need you to wake up.”

My partner sits up, his curly hair flying about like Einstein. He sees the morning wine and immediately understands.

“He’s dead, isn’t he?”

“Yes. Yes Honey I’m-”

Jim started dressing then collapsed to his knees near the bed. He put his fists to his head in a prayer to no one and cried.

*Flick.*

Jim wants to “play by baseball game in the yard ‘with’ him.”

I go to my hiding place and pull out the tattered Seahawks sweatshirt he’s wanted his friend buried in since we learned of his diagnosis. I brush the flies away and set the shirt over his body. I tell Rufus I love him and he was such a good boy.

*Flick.*

We call his daughter. She had been told last visit that he was likely to pass before she came up for the summer. I had texted her mom he wasn’t well, she had prepped April.

We called her and told her. We cried. We asked her how she was feeling.

My partner’s saint of a daughter said, “I just feel bad I guess because I wish I had been there during his last days, to be there for him.”

*Flick.*

I’m in the living room of my partner’s parents’ house.

We are eating pie that his sister has made after a dinner his mother planned. He and his brother dug a hole in the backyard. My partner’s niece helped me get an ink paw print from his body. His former brother-in-law carried Rufus to the grave. My partner’s father carefully wrapped Rufus in a sweatshirt and set him gently in the hole.

Jim and I had been surrounded by love. I had bought a bouquet and I passed flowers out to everyone. Each family member told a short story about Rufus then tossed thor flower into his grave. No eye was dry a we toasted our friend and re-filled the hole.

As we are eating dessert, my partner’s mom starts talking about a minor health concern. His brother yells at her from the kitchen to go to the doctor.

*Flick.*

We all lash. We yell and scream and cry. We yell at ourselves and others for those we love.

But you know what? Even the calmest, kindest people, nay, especially the calmest very kindest people, yell when they are actively loving.

Next time you hear a person crying or yelling. Stop. Sit back. Think.

Are they really just loving very loudly?