a moment in the day: walk

Late afternoon on a mild October day, Stephen and I are taking a walk. The trees we pass are green, then orange, then red, then green again. 

"Want to go see the fairy garden?" he asks.

"Sure." We turn at the corner and keep going.

Taking a walk, or like last night, actually going out to a reading event, are things I didn't do much in these, the last months of Nicholas' life, as his eyes became cloudier, his body shakier, his separation anxiety all-consuming. Feels weird whenever I'm out of the house now.

There was something sacred about giving all my time to him at the end. And now, on the other side, a walk isn't just a walk; it's also not being needed anymore.

Everything is two things right now. Everything is the thing it is and also the thing it used to be. Turning the latch on the top lock of the back door—the rigidness under my fingers, then the give and the creak-clunk as it turns—is also me taking Nicholas out in the mornings. Getting up from my desk to cross the room to turn on, or off, the air conditioner is also looking for where he is on his little pile of pillows: is he asleep, is he awake, shall I get down there on the floor and give him a cuddle? Doing exercises late at night is also holding Nicholas to my chest instead of gripping hand weights as I do fifty squats, wondering what he thinks of bobbing up and down, up and down.

My history with Nicholas lives deep in my body, in all the tiny ways my body moves every day—turning over in bed, pouring a glass of water, stepping down the back steps.

Here's the fairy garden, suddenly, and Stephen and I stop to look. It's really just a house in the neighborhood where they've planted so many different types and colors of flowers that it looks kind of magical. Stephen points to a corner of the lawn and talks about how he saw the owners do some sort of special technique to get the formerly patchy grass to grow in quick and full. I think about Nicholas walking around our backyard in the tiny shoes I got him back in July when we had so many bees buzzing in the clover.

Everything is going to be two things for a while. And that's as it should be. I ask Stephen if he ever met the people who live here and if he ever told them he calls their yard a fairy garden. We look at the pretty flowers for a little longer and then we continue on our way.