Patience has never been a virtue of mine. I have always found it difficult to live in the moment and enjoy spending life planning what's next. I have trouble staying focused on one thing and tend to multitask – often in front of multiple screens. For instance right now, I'm booking air travel, texting about yoga class, responding to email, drinking coffee, people watching, writing this, oh, and mourning intensely. You struggled with ADD as a student and continued to as an adult, but despite your diagnosis of lack of focus, I never met a man who was more patient.
When I spent my days with you, I woke up cheerful. I was excited about life.
Now, I wake up anxious. I wake up sad. I feel like a Peanut's cartoon character who walks around with a raincloud over her head all day. I see something out of place and get upset with whoever put it there. My father has been staying with Kevin and I in the house since you died. He's been giving me space and acting with nothing but love, but I am reactive and snappy towards him. I feel like I'm experiencing my worst case of PMS every day, all day. I can hardly stand to be around myself.
I think of the woman I was with you – the joyful woman who always had a positive outlook. That woman would not want to be around this woman. She might pity this woman. I want to be the me I was with you.
A few days ago, someone told me, "Sami, you are grace". The comment stopped me in my tracks. When I was a ten-year-old ballet dancer, my Mademoiselle told me the opposite. She said to me, "Sami you are just not graceful and you will never be". That insult stuck with me as a child and was a defining moment for me. I remember the exact place I was standing when she said it. I remember my black leotard. I remember the scent of rosin on the wood floor. I remember my pointe shoes carelessly laced around my ankles. I decided right then, in that moment, 'Since I am not graceful, instead I will be strong'. And so, I became strong. I left the possibility of embodying grace in the past. In fact, I decided that since I was absolutely not graceful, that I would name the little girl I hoped have someday, Grace. That way, someday, I could have grace.
So when this person told me that I am grace. I was taken aback. I took inventory – where could I possibly give the impression of being graceful right now? I'm a fucking mess! Maybe I appeared graceful in my yoga practice – my own dance of devotion, with strength meeting flexibility, a moving meditation? Maybe I appeared graceful in my moments of gentle strength throughout this mess: a broken woman trying to hold it together? A woman who in her best moments, only allows one tear to fall from the corner of her eye. Maybe in my writing I can sometimes appear graceful – when I'm able to string words together in a proper sentence with only a few grammatical liberties?
I'm not graceful when I'm screaming in my car, punching the steering wheel, red-faced and puffy with buckets of tears falling from my baggy eyes. That's not grace. I'm not graceful when I'm angry – angry at death, angry at life for being fleeting, angry at people for not having altered your fate, angry at myself for failure, even at times, angry at you for leaving. That's not grace. I'm not graceful when I frigid or needy towards others. When someone puts their hand on me and my mind screams, 'Don't fucking touch me!' or maybe when it screams, 'Oh! Please keep touching me.' That's not grace. I'm not graceful when my body is so confused by its lack of touch, that I try in vain to pleasure myself and end up sobbing into a pillow. That's not grace. I'm not graceful when I drive the hairpin turns up the hill to our home and before each turn think, 'Maybe I'll just keep going straight off the cliff instead'. That's not grace. That's not strength.
But you my love, you define grace. You were grace in every move: as a thinker, as a yogi, as a lover, as a driver, as a skier, as a musician, as a teacher, simply, as a man. You carried us in grace. And often, I carried us in strength. You carried us in patience. I carried us in movement. It was a great fit. We each carried the perfect amount of weight to even out the scale. We balanced one another out.
A testament to your beautiful virtue of patience and grace:
In our shower, my faucet tended to leak. Unless the handle was turned tightly, the head would drip constantly. I never remembered to crank the handle. Within a couple weeks of us moving in together, you said to me, "Hey baby, so in our shower, you need to crank the handle down or your faucet will drip." "Oh, OK! I'll remember," I told you. Over the course of the next six months, you reminded me at least forty times. Always with the same patience, the same tone, and never with an ounce of irritation, "Hey baby, so in our shower, you need to crank the handle down or your faucet will drip." "Argh! Yes!" I would remember. "Hey baby, soooo in our shower..." "Yes, yes yes! The drip," I'd say. Over and over and over and over.
One day, six months later, I stepped into the shower and my handle was wrapped in sparkly duct tape. You were trying a new technique. You realized the method you'd been implementing, verbal reminders, wasn't landing – so without being antagonizing, you tried a different method, a visual reminder. And that landed. And every day since, I've cranked the shower handle.
And now, in your absence, that sparkly duct tape is still there. It's a little 'Hello' from you every time I turn the water on and off. You reminded me for six months about that drip, without fail. And you, with your patience that matches none other, didn't place blame for my forgetfulness. You were gracious, thoughtful, and simply tried something new.
I love you for your patience, Teddy. I love you for your grace. I love you for your strength. And as I move through this grief process, when emotions arise – whether it be depression, tears, anger, desperation, or anything else – I'll remember your grace and your patience. I'll remember that now, in order to carry you on, I must embody you. Maybe in time I will have the steadfast patience that you so beautifully held. Maybe there will be brief moments when your grace shows through my being. And maybe someday, I will still have Grace.
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