08/17/14 - Matthew goes away to college

Dear kiddos,                                                                                                                       08/17/14

                This is a Matthew letter. 

                I’m sprawled across Matt’s bed facing the corner of the red wall and the gray wall, with the afternoon sunlight streaming through the blind warming rectangles on my legs. Last time I lay here, Matt was sitting three feet away in his desk chair watching some absurd sci-fi video on his large monitor. I baked pizza in the toaster oven and we ate it together while Aunt Robyn’s dogs, Cassidy and Griffin, looked on wistfully. (I’ve explained to them why I can’t give them pizza, but they never seem to care.) The sheets have that fresh-out-of-the-wash-half-starchy feel; I just washed them and remade the bed. I can’t help it. When I say goodbye, I need something to do. When I house-sit my friends’ kids, I clean the house while I say goodbye. When my patients leave, I walk through the room and make sure it’s ready for housekeeping. When they die – I’ve never confessed this before – I walk into their that strangely empty-reverberatingly-not-empty room and tell them goodbye, you can leave this room now, go in peace. Maybe I’m the one that needs that go in peace more than they do. When my teen staff left camp, I cleaned the teen staff lounge. Often I cry a little. I know that my tears of saying goodbye are not just for the person I’ve left or been left by – they’re for all the other goodbyes stacked up somewhere far inside and consciously forgotten. It’s ok. I probably should have cried for them before I forgot them, but maybe for every time I cry a few more tears than are justifiable, one of the ghosts can go to sleep. 

                Enough with the melodrama.  I didn’t say goodbye to Matt today.  I said it on Wednesday evening and Friday night. 

                Wednesday late afternoon I came back from running and found Matt pulling the lawn mower out of the garage. I have never mowed the lawn in my life. Mom and Dad expected that their four sons would do the heavy labor and their daughter would marry someone who could do it instead of her. But she didn’t. So since Matt’s leaving, I figured I should be able to help mow the lawn. “Oooh!” I said, “Can I mow too?”

                Matt sighed, no doubt knowing it would take twice as long because he’d have to teach me and then watch me to make sure I did it right. He doesn’t cut corners. One more thing I love about this guy.

                “Ok. I’ll do part of it and then I’ll call you to do the other part.”

                And I was excited. Doing something new with Matt! Two of my favorite things. When he called me I went skipping out through the garage to where he stood with the lawn mower in the driveway. I reached for the mower handle but he held up a hand.

                “Ok. *ahem* I have to give you a little talk about mowing the lawn. I’m going to sound all like Tim Eckert, but that’s just how it is. So. *ahem* There are a few things you have to know before you go rushing off to mow the lawn. You see this neighborhood? All these houses? Well, in this neighborhood, everybody cares about how their lawns look. And when they drive by, they’re checking out all the neighbors’ lawns. So if you don’t mow carefully, and you leave the grass uneven, everyone is going to notice, and they’re going to think that you just don’t belong in this neighborhood. Ok? That’s how it is. So you have to do a good job and not miss any spots.”

                I was gaping openmouthed at him and my brain was yakking doubletime. Omg I love you you are going to be the best dad in the whole wide world and I can’t believe now you’re teaching me about expectations and I can’t believe you’re leaving and this feels like a benediction somehow with your hand still held up and do you know that you are blessing me with the Benediction of the Lawn Mower and how am I going to live without you here with me and what happened, you were small and giggly and too skinny to keep your pants from falling down all the time and now you are tall and ripped and all big boy serious teaching me about lawn mowers?

                Matt had already glanced at my feet to make sure my sneakers were appropriate lawn mowing wear. Since he didn’t mention them, I figured they were.

“Allllllright. So with that said, this is the safety. You always need to hold the safety down or the mower will shut off. And this is the cord you pull to start the motor. Then – unh unh unh let me push it – I’m going to show you first, okay – you have to make sure that you keep one wheel on the inside of the last section you mowed, so that they overlap and you don’t have any places you miss. Like this. Okay? Okay. And then… I’m going to have you mow the edges of the lawn first. Then you can mow in a circle around the tree and keep going in big circles till you mow the whole lawn. You got it? Oooookay then. Here you go. Just hurry up. It’s getting dark.”

He started the motor and held the safety down until my hands gripped the handle firmly. I set off. He stood in the driveway, sweet-talking Cassidy and Griffin and watching me carefully.

Half an hour later, I was still pushing the lawn mower in circles. Dusk fell and I could hardly tell if the inner wheel was inside the last section or not. The next-door neighbor stopped by after walking his small white dog, and he and Matthew stood out in the street talking. I glanced over my shoulder and there was Matt – remarkably Dad-esque – with his feet planted widely, hands in his pockets, chatting it up, and still watching me carefully. I let the safety go by accident and felt myself flush red while Matt and the neighbor watched me practically flailing, pulling that cord six times before the motor restarted.  When I finished I rolled the lawn mower into the garage and went to greet the neighbor, slipping my arm around Matt and tucking my chin against his shoulder briefly in an unspoken thank you. I felt like a little kid asking for the affirmation I needed, so I asked in a little voice. “Did I do okay mowing the lawn?”

“Yeah,” he said. “It looks fine.” And he didn’t fix anything. Which I think in guy lingo means it really did look fine. 

Then on Friday night Ruthanna, who was sleeping over with me, came tearing into my room. “Matt says he wants to show you a really cute baby!” 

The really cute baby was Matt. He had turned on one of our old family movies. A one-year-old curly blond-haired Matthew was wobbling towards the camera, giggling and grabbing. Later in the movie, scrawny five year old Tabitha catches Matthew around his chubby tummy and heaves him (literally, you can see me struggling) to his feet. Wrapping her arms around his chest, she holds him up as he staggers crowing and giggling towards the camera. 

 “Are you taking him for his morning walk?” Dad asks. (I was conditioned for caregiving roles.)

“Yeah,” she says. She stops directly in front of the camera, holding Matt up while he squeaks and reaches for the lens. Then she tucks her chin against his shoulder and smiles protectively into the camera. 

“Can you screenshot that for me?!?” I beg.

Matt sighs. This is already the third screenshot I’ve asked for.

“Okay, Tabi. You know, you can do this yourself. You can watch all these videos since I put them on your backup hard drive and you can just take snapshots of everything. You use the Snipping Tool I showed you from your Start menu. Okay?”

And then he still takes the screenshot and puts it on Facebook and tags me in it.

Later that night I lie awake in bed, half listening to Ruthanna talk about Harry Potter, half staring at the picture I’ve pulled up from Facebook on my phone. I have placed the screenshot next to my favorite picture of Matt and I. I don’t look anything like my five year old self, but I can see baby Matthew in college Matt’s face. 

And it struck me that this is a cruel crazy beautiful world. Baby brothers lose their curly blond hair and their tummy rolls. They stop going by their full names. They teach big sisters to mow lawns and laughingly acknowledge that they stand and talk just like their dads. They sigh about all the ridiculous things big sisters ask for. They smile possessively at the next-door neighbor while big sisters tuck their chins against baby brothers’ shoulders and pretend that somehow that baby isn’t gone, not all the way, not forever. And they go away to college and leave the big sisters to lie on their deserted beds writing sappy letters. 

Bye, Matt.  It’s strange that it’s a lot harder to have you leave than to leave you.  Have fun. Study hard. Learn how to do things and teach things more, better, deeper. Go to bed a little earlier than you’ve done this summer.  Or a little later, since it’s college for crying out loud. Make tons of friends but don’t forget to watch old family videos sometimes. And take care of that place on your shoulders that belongs to my chin.

Tab

P. S. Don’t forget to take your morning walk.