A Conversation

“I don’t want to have this conversation…again”

“We have to have this conversation, hun. Not just for our kids but for our own peace of mind. It haunts me, the thought of leaving you, or dying on you. It haunts me, just as much as that recurring nightmare plagues you.”

“But what if we are asking for trouble, inviting …..death, into our home, into our life.”

“Death is a part of living. It doesn’t need an invitation. It doesn’t wait for an invitation, death will come, whether we are prepared for it or not.”

“I don’t want to prepare for death”

“You’re not. We’re not. We are preparing for peace of mind, so we can live, guilt free no matter what”

“I would have guilt, just because we are having this conversation”

“Well don’t I wouldn’t want you to have guilt, that is the last thing I would want. The sun doesn’t shine in my world, until you smile.”

“Can’t I just bubble wrap you? Or you could go for the drilling promotion, it’s less dangerous”

“You can’t bubble wrap me. But I will think about accepting the promotion. We still need to have this talk. Shit happens, it drives me nuts too you know. Thinking about losing one of the kids, is my worse nightmare. Losing you…I don’t think I could breath, let alone survive.”

“You would have too, for our kids… If you expect me to survive, after…. Then so would you…I would never forgive you if you didn’t. If you just gave up, moved some broad in to raise our children…to ruin our beautiful children. I would never forgive you”

“I wouldn’t know how, you do everything, you can do everything. Me, all I know how to do is make money…”

“Oh please, you are a wonderful father. The better parent of the two of us, ok the fun parent, and let’s face it fun is what will make their childhood great. Magical.”

“But… I don’t know if I would have the strength…”

“You would find it, you could hire a nanny.Maybe move closer to your sister, pay her to watch our kids. If you wanted to keep rigging, to keep your career. Find a good bakery. My job is easy.”

“Easy?!? Babe, you do everything! You are in the trenches, day to day. Our whole house hold would fall apart without you. You keep us all in line, the boys, me, we would just be a bunch of wild savages without you. And our girl, our baby girl… who would she be without you…”

“Spoiled. She will be spoiled rotten with you and her brothers doting on her every whim. But I don’t think my influence can stop that from happening either way. She will run you boys ragged, and keep you in line. She is, my daughter. I have no doubt she will just take over. She has already started at only 2.”

“We need you around to save us from that little mother hen.”

“and I plan to be around but if the worse happens, you have to promise you will go on without me. You can live and raise our kids without me.”

“I could never forget you”

“I would hope not with all the little reminders under foot. But I would want you to survive losing me, to go on, raise our kids. You raise our kids, and be happy. All of you, be happy. Give them a great childhood”

“I’m not sure if I could raise the kids as good as their mother would.”

“Of course you can’t so don’t even try…. Just be their dad…. They will need their dad”

“I need you”

“And I need you too. But if”

“if the worse happened, I would find the strength not to fall. God would give me the strength to handle it, for the kids… our kids are our legacy. In the end, they are all that matters. I’ll just imagine you are there with me holding my hand like you always are…. And I won’t let go….I won’t let go of us or our love. We are soul mates, and you can’t lose a part of your own soul.”

“I love you baby… but I still don’t believe in soul mates. I will always be your hand to hold when you need a friend. Just like I’ll always be there to kick your butt, if you’re about to fuck it up…don’t worry.”

“One day I’ll convince you, that you are my soul mate… but right now we are having this conversation. And it’s your turn to think about it….”

“Ugh I don’t want to do this…. My dream, my nightmare….it is just so real, when come in…”

“Who comes in, who?”

“A police officer, she’s calling my name, trying to wake me up.”

“Banging on the door?”

“No, she’s just in there. In the back room standing there when I get out of bed”

“You really need to start locking the door”

“…. And she has people with her, two other women”

“More cops?”

“No, or at least I don’t think so they are just in….clothes and they don’t… act, like cops. They just stand there, with that look on their faces”

“What look?”

“You know that pitiful look people give you, that look that says ‘I’m sorry this is happening to you but I’m glad it’s not me’ look. Then the police woman makes me sit down.”

“Does she put her hands on you, and force you to sit down?”

“No. She gestures for me to sit down on the red love seat in the back room, and I do….I’m already dumbfounded that they are in our house.”

“We should move the table back in that room”

“Do you think it would make a difference?”

“No. How does she tell you? What are her exact words?”

“She…she says ‘There has been an accident, your husband is dead”

“Just like that with no…..”

“Just like that, no emotion, no sympathy at least none that lessens the blow. She doesn’t make eye contact. They don’t even breathe as the words hang there in the air, and I can see them written there, like destiny’s signature before they slam into me like a physical punch. Each word impacting me like the slap of an exclamation mark. THERE! HAS! BEEN! AN! ACCIDENT! YOUR! HUSBAND! IS! DEAD! ….. Don’t roll your eyes that’s how it is…in the nightmare.”

“It just seems very dramatic, even for a dream. “

“It isn’t funny, nothing about this is funny. And it isn’t just a dream it is a nightmare. It’s my worst nightmare”

“Because you’re not trying hard enough to see the humor in it.”

“There is no humor in a reoccurring nightmare. And not just a nightmare, your worst nightmare.”

“I’m sorry but… you could find the humor in any situation. If you tried….there is always humor in every situation. Humour would make it easier”

“That might be how you handle…life’s knocks but I don’t know if it applies to death”

“It applies to everything, even death. Maybe more so for death then anything else, because that’s when you need it most. Ok ok that is how I deal with crap, and you will just have to put up with all the jokes I’ll crack at your funeral…. But go on, what happens after you’re bitch slapped by exclamation marks.”

“I scream….I scream in pain and fall to the floor. Crumple up, screaming….and I die.”

“Really? Well I can’t say you could ever take a hit, your such a little girl baby”

“Shut up! We are having a serious conversation”

“One that you didn’t even want to have”

“Yes that’s right. So shut your mouth, and let me tell you what’s going to happen…”

“But that is not going to happen. Because my wife doesn’t fall when life hits her. Because my wife is a fighter, and if my wife gets hit by life, hell if she even gets annoyed with what life is trying to hand her she strikes first. So where is my wife in your nightmare?”

“I don’t know….all I can hear is myself screaming in pain, and when I look up, before I close my eyes for the last time I see all the kids, looking down at me crumpled on the floor…and I know that I just left them in the world as orphans’. “

“See, that isn’t the woman I love. Nope not my wife. Not the woman that always reminds me that she made a promise to God. A promise to be the best mother she could be to the four blessing He left in her care. For the next 18 years of their lives, her children come first. Her children will always come first, even before her own grief. So what does that woman do?”

“I don’t know what I would do”

“Sure you do, I know you do, hun. What will my wife do?”

“I don’t know”

“Yes you do! Don’t shake your head like you don’t. My wife always has a plan. So what’s the plan? If the worse happens what’s your plan, Huh?”

“I! DON’T! KNOW!”

“Fine I will tell you what you will do. What I would expect my wife will do. First, my wife won’t just blindly sit where someone tells her to sit ever. Because she never has. Even when someone politely offers her a chair. You will decided if you will sit down to take the news or if you will hear it standing up. And you will decide what room in our house you will hear it in. Hopefully away from the children. Second, you will NOT scream. My wife isn’t a screamer, you’re a yeller but not a screamer. I could see my wife throwing the cops out of our house. But not screaming. And I doubt, you’ll even yell because you would be too worried about freaking out our kids.”

“You’re right, I wouldn’t want to freak out our kids.”

“And you probably wouldn’t want some stranger telling them that they lost their dad”

“I would want to tell them. I don’t know how I would be able to tell them, but I would hopefully do a better job than a heartless empty declaration that they just lost the most important person in their life.”

“But they didn’t, they will still have you”

“Yes, that’s right. You are the most important male in their life, but they still have me, their momma, and I am a strong woman….they are not alone in this.”

“What else?”

“I’ll hold them. Tell them how much they meant to you, how much you love them. I’ll tell them we will get through it together.”

“And?”

“And what?”

“And what about the day after that? Or the week after that? Or the year after that?”

“I will be there for them, always.”

“And?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“You will have to go out and get a job. Figure out a career which can support them…like they are used to being supported”

“How the hell can I do that? You are the provider! I am just a housewife, just a mother.”

“Stop selling your self short. You’ll have to work hard, hun. You will have to work as hard as a man in the work force. But I don’t think that will be a problem, because you are a hard working woman. Just like you don’t want some other woman raising our kids, I don’t want another man supporting them, because you think you couldn’t do it yourself because you can.”

“What are you really saying?”

“I don’t want some SOB moving into our house?”

“You mean in our bed”

“No, you are a beautiful sensual woman. A woman that deserves to be made love too. That needs to be made love too. And I wouldn’t deny you that, but I don’t want him in our house, in our bed, with the kids under the same roof. In a perfect world, I wouldn’t want you to love anyone the way you love me. But if I’m gone, it’s not a perfect world. So go out and get yours….just don’t bring those bastards in our house.”

“I don’t think I could ever love anyone like I love you”

“Of course not. We are soul mates. But hun, I give you permission to do what ever the hell you have to do without guilt to keep standing. Keep fighting until you honor that promise you made to God.”

“Now who’s being dramatic?”

“I’m serious. No matter what happens we need to keep our eyes on what really matters. And that is getting our kids through it. We can insure each other and everything we own but money doesn’t mean anything if our kids grow up without a childhood, or are shitty adults. “

“Money corrupts everything, a necessary evil.”

“But if we can get them through it hun, to give them a childhood, to give them a little bit better than what we had, it will all be worth it. “

“Don’t let go of my hand, don’t ever let go of my hand.”

“I couldn’t even if I lost it, my hand is yours, just like my heart, my soul”

“I don’t believe in soul mates”

“One day, I’ll make you a believer, even if it takes more than a lifetime.”