Before and After

Night Before

I placed two mugs of Earl Grey decaf on coasters and sat down with my husband on the chenille overstuffed couch. I shared details of the day camp meeting, reminder - do not sent peanut butter sandwiches, a case of rosacea was going around and don’t forget extra swim diapers for kids who might poop in the pool. Jonathan, smiled, blew on his tea and carefully took a sip.

“How was bedtime?” I asked.

“Noah is gobbling up Captain Underpants – he’s reading it quicker than I do. And Maya loved Red is Best, I had to read it three times.”

I smiled.

Morning After

I hear little feet running up the set of stairs to our bedroom. I lie waiting for the innocent face with the blue eyes. Only moments of bliss left in her little life. She clutches ‘blue baby’ doll and climbs over the two pillows I have placed under the cozy blanket as a temporary decoy.

Night Before

"I'm feeling dizzy," he interrupted himself as he placed his hands to his forehead. He fell back into the comfy couch, his eyes fluttering closed.

“Jonathan!” I screamed. No response. He looked like he was taking a nap. I grasped at the phone. “My husband’s collapsed, we need help!” The operator told me to get him on the floor, open the front door and start CPR. I did, taking a break to speak to her again. The line was dead. Within three minutes several tall, large EMTs burst through the screen door.

One gently took me to the kitchen.

“It is best you stay here mam. I’ll stay with you. Are there children in the house?” Dazed, I pointed to our children’s closed bedroom doors.

“Is there someone to stay with them while you go to the hospital?”

Jonathan would have loved all the machinery of lifesaving. Ticker tape read outs, EKG monitors, shouts of “clear! “ before the defibrillator released a charge.

Our two children never woke that night as two teams of paramedics worked amid flashing lights, making several attempts at shocking Jonathan's heart back into a normal rhythm.

Morning After

“Where is Daddy?” she asks sleepily. Breath in. Breath out. “Daddy’s heart stopped working last night and he died.” Did she get it? I wonder. Pause. “I love you sweetie and I’m here for you.”

“Daddy, Daddy!!” she starts wailing on cue as if someone had told her she had to scream. I’m not sure her wailing is genuine. Over time it would become real, I thought.

I cradle her, back and forth, back and forth, in the safety of our flannel pajamas and the soft feathery duvet.

More feet scramble up the stairs. “Mom, I heard Maya crying. What’s wrong?” our son asks.

“Noah, I am going to tell you the worst thing you will ever hear in your life.” His blue-gray eyes have that all-knowing look, and that buried fear.

“Daddy’s heart stopped working last night, and he died. I know this is really hard to understand, but I am here for you, we are a family and I will take care of you guys.”

“I want a new Dad with a new heart!” Noah blurts out.

Maya just wailed in my arms, “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy!!!!”

I hold my children tightly. Noah is moving his feet under the blankets, getting restless.

“I am going to tell you what will happen in the next few days. First, do you want to see Daddy?”

Both nod eagerly, without thinking. They imagine they might see him alive again, ready to make a volcano mixed from vinegar and baking soda explode out of a juice can.

“There will be lots of people here during the next few days. People will be talking on the phone, hugging, and crying. Daddy is going to be carefully placed in a box and gently put in the ground. He can’t feel anything. His body doesn’t work anymore but the most important part of him is here.” I placed my hand first on Maya’s little chest, then on Noah’s.

“It’s hard to understand. It’s very sad.” I echoed the words told to me last night by a rabbi at two a.m. in the hospital. “Be honest with them Mara. Cry with them.”

I have no tears, although I desperately want to show my children that it is OK to cry.

“You don’t have to go to school this morning,” I explain. “Later, I need to choose the box we are to bury Daddy in. You will stay with your grandparents and Uncle Mark. Do you have any questions?” I ask.

“What happened to Daddy, Mommy?” Noah asks. I repeat the story, again and again:

“Daddy and I were sitting together and talking about you guys and summer camp. He said he felt dizzy and then he leaned against the couch pillow. His eyes shut. I called the ambulance and we tried to save him. They put medicine into his body but it didn’t work. Doctors took him in the ambulance to the hospital and again they tried to wake up your father. They tried very hard. But sometimes, a body just dies. Daddy loved us very much. He still does.”

A blank, bored look moves slowly over their faces. They start kicking each other under the covers.

“OK, after breakfast, what do you guys want to do?” I finally ask.

“The park!!!” they scream in unison.

“OK,...ah,…OK, the park it is.”

After

We went to the park that morning and most mornings during that Fall.

Now, two decades later, I take Noah’s two sons to a different park in a new country, a new city, with a new husband. Father’s Day just passed. I think of how Jonathan was playful with his children, running around a mulberry tree in the rain and creating giraffes out of wire and paper mâché.

Now it is Noah’s turn – his memory of his Dad is only six years old, but the DNA and his soul is here; I am placing my hand near my heart.