Back To A Place We’d Been Before

I had an oddly familiar feeling as I walked the grounds of this hotel.  Why did I feel as if I’d been there?  We had just made a pit stop on our 10 hour drive to visit Grant’s brother and his family.  A potty break for little boys and stretching for mom.  Now that I road trip as a lone parent and the only driver with 4 little boys, I like to take my time. I make lots of stops to enjoy the journey with boys, kind of like what I’m trying to do in life now anyway.

It was just a few days before the 1 year anniversary of Grant’s death. I didn’t want to be anywhere near where it happened, not even in the same state.  I had been on a short road trip a year before as well, just days before Grant would be gone. I’m wanting to get away and be with people who still love us even though you’re gone. The people who loved you first. We’re what’s left of you now.

I walked around the corner of this hotel. It felt as if I’d been there before, then I saw the pool.  I remembered Grant jumping into it.  I saw him there in the pool, the memory was from 13 years before.  We, Grant and I, had been here.  I looked down the walk to the building behind the pool, I remembered your hotel room.  I recalled where it had been and how we’d walked down that sidewalk. The sidewalk I was staring at now.  

This was the layover hotel Grant would stop at on a trip, back when he was a pilot.  This trip I had been with him and this is where we’d stayed.  Now I remembered.  It all came flooding back when I remembered him jumping into the water.  The water that now stood still, glimmering in the sun. No one was currently there enjoying the water, just my memory of us was all that stirred the water as it sat still and silent, just like you.

I smiled at the memory of him jumping in and splashing. He beckoned me to get in. The water was cold, but Grant said, just jump… get it over with.  I had hesitated, then jumped sooner than I would have had he not been there.  I didn’t want to take too long. I had wanted to impress you.  I jumped, screamed, went under the water and when I came up, there you were smiling. 

I inhaled deeply and squeaked just a little at the cold, then smiled as I looked at you.  There we were.  Just Grant and me, having fun, swimming, enjoying the moment.  Living in the moment of our new relationship and feeling the freedom of us. There were no kids, no idea what was ahead of us, no plans, just two people connecting. 

I came back to reality as I looked at my now 3 year old son. He was smiling as he ran to me, calling out, “mommy.” That little boy in front of me, the reality of how different it all is.  I looked at him, at what is real, which took that memory and pulled it back.  I told my son that daddy and I had been swimming here, before you were born. 

 He looked excited to be in a place daddy had been.  He said, “Take my picture here mommy, where daddy swims!” The memory of you and me here, that’s all I had retrieved, how did I get here again?  Why?  How did I find this place… randomly?  You always said, “Nothing is random, it’s random by design.”  Did you bring me here Grant? Did you want me to remember?  Maybe that smile? 

The children I have here with me now in this same place but we are in a completely different time and circumstance. Yet, I see Grant here so clearly.  The last time I was here, this boy in front of me, our son, he didn’t exist.  This time I’m here, Grant no longer exists, at least physically, and these 4 little boys do.  Oh how time transforms!

My baby wanted to have his picture taken in a place where daddy had been.  He now had meaning in this random pit stop, because daddy had been here, when he was alive.  It’s a connection to daddy.  The grasping of a reality long gone, but still so desired.  You’re gone, we’re here and all we can do is remember now.  Those memories, even the forgotten ones are all we have. It seems like every so often, a forgotten memory is brought to the surface and the reality of you being gone is once more brought into focus.

It’s usually when I think I am doing well, getting along, moving forward and living life that it happens. Again I’m brought back to you, you’re gone, and the loss never seems to disappear like you did.  The lack of your presence and the silence that goes with it seems to scream at me. In moments like this, I remember what it was like when I thought things would never change. Of course you’d always be here with me.  The life we’d build together would never end.  I remember that, when I smiled at you in the pool, I thought that you’d always smile back. 

I took my son’s picture. We went potty, got back in the car and started driving again.  Continuing on.  As we do in life every time there’s a little stop that turns into a memory. A memory though very fond, I still don’t really want to stay with.  And so on we went, moving forward in the car, and in my mind I kept on thinking of you jumping into that pool.  A memory I’d not thought of for 13 years, till now.