CHAPTER ONE
It’s 6pm on a Wednesday in late August 2021. The lights dimmed and the shades drawn against the Western sky where the sun still lingers.
Music plays from my phone over the low hum of machines, like white noise just beneath the surface. Despite the air conditioning it’s warm and close in the small room.
I take off my mask which is already wet with tears and snot. A tissue materializes in front of me and I snatch it. My sinuses swollen shut, I smell nothing.
His limp hand in mine, still warm with life, I whisper over and over, “You were the best husband and father.”
Someone asks me if I am ready and I say yes even though I am not. The white noise stops, the room plunges into silence. A voice breaks through, “He is gone.”1
My best friend Lisa flew in from Chicago the day after Steven died. She stayed with her mom who still has an apartment near mine in Manhattan, and then came to hang out with Henry and me at my place.
We spent the next few days working on Lego projects with Henry, drinking coffee and planning Steven’s Zoom memorial. Covid was still a concern in New York City, so I didn’t want to do anything in person. We hadn’t planned a service in advance anyway.
Although he had been living with incurable cancer for three years, Steven’s death felt unexpected. He was admitted to the hospital with pneumonia, but the doctors believed he would be released within a couple of days.
They realized too late that the cumulative effects of chemotherapy and a clinical trial drug had caused irreparable damage to his heart. He died a week later in the hospital before I could bring him home on hospice.
“Email me a list of contacts and I’ll help you pick a bunch of photos,” Lisa said, taking charge. “I’ll put together a video and send out the invitation with a Zoom link.”
“I’m glad you’re here,” I said, slightly embarrassed.
I hadn’t wanted her to come, but the minute I told her Steven had died she said she was getting on a plane. Of course she would come. We have known each other for fifty years, having met in nursery school when she was 3- and I was 4-years-old.
The truth was, I just wanted to be alone and pretend like none of this was happening. I wanted to run away where nobody knew me, where there were no expectations about how I should act or feel. I didn’t want to break down. There was too much to do.
Four days after Steven died, family and friends gathered virtually to share memories of him, followed by a 5 minute video montage. Since the service was primarily for me, I chose to listen rather than speak while Lisa ran the show.
She kept everyone on time so we could clock out after an hour. Henry played in his room rather than watch it live, but we recorded it.
Steven’s younger brother spoke first from Seattle where he lived with his wife and 18-year-old daughter. While there was a lot of love between them, they were not particularly close.
My brother spoke next about all the Thanksgivings and Christmases we spent together. When Steven moved in with me, just six months after we met, my brother was living in the building next door with his wife and two children. We did a good amount of babysitting for them before they moved to a nearby suburb when the kids were 8- and 12-years old.
My niece, now a 21-year-old college graduate, was in tears, “I remember all the fun sleepovers, McDonald's for dinner, and Steven’s homemade ice cream.”
That was the only time I felt a little emotional as I watched in gallery view, my tiny square anchored in the upper left hand corner of the screen.
There were very few relatives from older generations. My father was the only parent still alive, but he was too frail to participate after a year of Covid isolation. My brother and I were still in the process of getting him into an assisted living facility.
Both of Steven’s parents had died. His dad passed the year before, and his mom died from ovarian cancer when he was a senior in high school.
Steven's step-mother was there and she shared some sweet stories from his 20s and 30s. His aunt (mother’s sister) and a couple of first cousins shared memories from his childhood.
That was pretty much all the family we had. My mother had been estranged from her parents and siblings when she died two and a half years earlier, and my father’s only sister had died at the end of April 2021.
There were still about 60 people on the call as Steven was loved by so many; old friends, parents from our babysitting co-op, and colleagues from past jobs all spoke of his kindness and generosity.
The one thing I heard over and over was how devoted Steven was to Henry and me. I knew he loved us, of course I knew, but the last year and a half had been especially difficult. When the pandemic descended on New York City in March 2020, I wanted to rent a house near my brother because Steven’s immune system was so compromised.
I also felt trapped inside our 2 bedroom, 1 bathroom apartment. We were seeing stories on the news about trailers being converted into makeshift morgues in hospital parking lots because there wasn’t enough room for all the bodies.
It was miserable working remotely from our bedroom while in the living room Steven attempted to supervise Henry in his 2nd grade Google classroom. It didn’t go well, and I was angry that both of them resisted leaving.
We sublet our apartment to our neighbor’s sister, but returned to the city when the new school year started. When public schools reopened in September 2020 using a hybrid model, it proved too chaotic for a child on the autism spectrum who thrived on routine.
After six weeks of school refusal we made the decision to send Henry to a special needs private school, and sell our apartment to pay for his tuition.
It should have been a fast sale but nothing is ever quick and easy with Manhattan real estate. It was now 8 months later, and we didn’t have a closing date when Steven died.
“I can’t believe you’re only here for two more days,” I was close to whining.
Lisa had been in the city for almost two weeks. I knew she needed to get back to her life in Chicago, but I didn’t know how I was going to do this parenting thing alone.
“I know,” she said, “but I can pick Henry up from school tomorrow if that helps.”
“Yes, that would be great! You guys can just take a cab back here.”
“That’s going to get expensive. Any update about the apartment sale?”
“We’re closing in November, but I want to move by October 1st. I’m going to see three rentals on Friday while Henry is in school.”
“Oh, I wish I could stay and help you pack!”
“It’s fine. I’m in ‘get shit done mode’ and that’s what I plan to do.”
Credit for this first section goes to
and Writing in the Dark. I first worked on this piece as part of Ms. Ouellette’s Writing Prompt: Break the Mirror which challenged me to, “Refrain from going beyond facts to feeling.” Thank you Jeannine for allowing me to be part of your WITD community.
He Is Gone