I am the only one wearing a winter coat as I emerge from the plane in Palm Springs.
The outdoor airport is one of the most beautiful in the world, lined with palm trees, wall-to-wall sunshine, the mountains hugging you as you walk out of the terminal. I shed my coat and tie it around my waist. I lift my face to the sun.
“I’ve missed you,” I say. “I’m home.”
I rent a car and drive to my house. The couple renting my home arrive in a few days, so I have little time to make hard and fast decisions.
Should I stay? Should I go?
Why are the biggest decisions in my life always reduced to ’80s songs?
I stop at Ralph’s on the way and pick up a few groceries. When I walk into my house, it is a bit musty. It smells like someone else’s house, so I begin opening windows to air out that “shut up” scent. I immediately change into my bathing suit, check all my plants—the gardeners have been doing a wonderful job—and head to the pool, which I’ve not heated. I dip a toe in—much too cold, especially with the nights turning chillier—and head for the hot tub. I turn on the jets and immerse myself in the hot, bubbling water.
It is surreal to go from gray skies to blue, from cold to warm, from northern Michigan to Southern California, from new life to old life in the blink of an eye.
I shut my eyes, and the image of the sun remains, floating. Slowly, it breaks apart, into a million tiny dots.
I see snow falling.
I emerge from the spa, towel off and take a seat on a recliner. I turned off my phone immediately after showing my boarding pass at the airport in Traverse City. I take a big drink of water, a deep breath and turn on my cell.
My screen is filled with text messages.
Mason, Lisa, Icicle, and, of course, my mom.
I called her last night after I reached the airport and left her a voice mail. When she called, over and over, I refused to answer. I listen to her voice mail now.
I take it you’re back in the desert. I hope the sun brings clarity. Ultimately, though, I know it won’t bring happiness, honey. When will you stop running away? You’re such a fighter at heart. Even last night, watching you on the news, you were fiery and real, and that’s why people love you. Because you’re like all of us. We try to do our best every day, but sometimes we screw up. Some days, we take two big steps forward, and the next we take a big one back. But you know what I always preach as a hospice nurse, honey: don’t live with regret. And you’re filled with it. Your bucket is overflowing. And your reactions—both personally and professionally—are proof of that.
I blink away tears.
Do you know who was the bravest of all? Your father. He visited Joncee’s grave every single week. On Memorial Day, he planted peonies. In the summer, he brought her ice cream. In the fall, he raked leaves and jumped in the pile just like she used to do. And in the winter, he made snowmen with big happy charcoal smiles. He honored her memory; he didn’t run away from it. And that’s what I try to do. I know every one of your quirks, honey: touching light switches, door handles and seat buckles, air-braking in the car on snowy drives. I’ve watched you do it ever since you arrived home again. In the morning. Before bed. When I leave. But none of those things will bring your sister back. And they won’t keep you safe. I can’t even do that. I wish I could roll back time for you, for me, for all of us, but I can’t. None of us can. I have to believe there’s a reason God challenged our family in this way. I used to think it was so we could give a bit more of ourselves to the world, touch people in our own way to make them feel better even for just a moment. I can hear her hold back her tears. But now I think it was so maybe, one day, we could give a bit more of ourselves to each other. I love you to the Mackinac Bridge and back, sweetheart. And I want you to love yourself that much, too.
I hit end and sob until I am gasping for air.
I stand and walk around my house, a total wreck at the thought of abandoning my mother.
Again.
I think of her alone, and I begin unconsciously counting, touching, doing the obsessive things to cope I always did at home.
It doesn’t matter how far, fast or much you run, Sonny. You can never escape what happened.
And then I go to bed and fall asleep and dream of my mom and dad, of Joncee, and of snowmen that smile forever and never melt.
I am Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz. Except it’s me—not Judy Garland—and Toto is Joncee, who follows me around like I know where I am going. There is a Yellow Brick Road, but it’s in the snow. The skies are bright blue but snowflakes still fall, and they look like glitter. Joncee and I jump in a toboggan and ride it to a dune overlooking Lake Michigan. The water is gold, and the horizon as pink as Joncee’s coat and cap.
I want to see what’s on the other side of the horizon, Joncee says. She takes off running. She is fast as a racehorse.
Before I can even yell to stop her, Joncee is gone. I pull the toboggan up the dune, ride it over the edge and land in the water, sliding all the way to the horizon.
Joncee! I call. Come back! Please! Come back!
I stand. The water is solid like the ground. I tap on the horizon, but it’s a wall—a theatrical set—that separates my world from the other side. There is no door. I knock again.
Hello? Hello? I call. Joncee!
A voice from somewhere says, You’re just seeing what you want to see. You’re not seeing reality. Go home!
I grab the toboggan and pull it all the way across Lake Michigan and back to the shoreline. When I reach it, the world turns black-and-white. The snow is no longer magical. The sky is gray. The horizon clouded.
Ding-Dong!
I hear Munchkins singing around me.
Ding-Dong!
I wake with a start.
It’s the doorbell, Sonny.
Bleary and exhausted, I stumble toward the front door, half of me lost in the in-between, between the dream world and the real world, part of me still in Michigan navigating my mother’s house.
I open the front door, and the glare blinds me. A delivery driver in a brown uniform stands before me.
“Sign here, ma’am.”
He holds out an electronic pad, and I scrawl something with my finger. As he hands me a package, he looks at me closely for the first time and says, “Don’t tell me. You’re that woman, right? The one on TV.”
“Yes,” I say, too tired to lie.
Then he does a hammy double take. “I knew it,” he says, laughing. “You’re that chick who totally lost it on TV, like a hundred times, right. You’re in the new People magazine. My girlfriend loves that magazine. You’re famous, lady. No, actually, you’re infamous.” He points at me, covering his mouth. “Wow. My girl will totally freak. Can I get a selfie with you?”
I start to say no, but his cell is out and his arm is already in the air. “Smile,” he says. “No. On second thought, look angry.” He snaps the picture. “That’ll do, I guess,” he says, sounding disappointed. “You just look sort of confused.”
He disappears through the gate, and I sleepwalk into the living room and open the package. An envelope with Sonny written on it is taped to the top of a gift-wrapped box.
I open the envelope. It is a handwritten letter. I don’t recognize the handwriting.
Dear Sonny,
I know this is an odd way of reaching out, but it’s the only way I know I can get out everything I want to say.
I put my heart on the line the other day. I asked you to give yourself a second chance. I hoped you wouldn’t run away…again. It’s been a very long time since I’ve felt this strongly about someone, and it’s been a long time since I’ve dated, so I really don’t know what I’m doing or how to do it. Maybe I’m just old-fashioned. Being honest. Writing letters. Maybe I like them because I know the recipient will have something to keep forever. It won’t be erased like a text message or deleted like an email.
First, I’m sorry for what’s happening to you. I don’t know who’s doing this, or why, but I believe bad people aren’t just mean they’re also dumb, and they will get caught sooner or later. I also believe that you’re a good person who’s experienced a lot of bad in your life. We’re all tested. Sometimes, I believe, it’s for a reason. So we can be better people, better teachers, better friends, better spouses, better period.
I spoke to your mother. She gave me your address. She’s worried about you. So am I. Talking about death is never easy. Sometimes, we don’t just bury those we love, we bury our pain and ourselves right along with them. They die, and a big piece of us does, as well.
I live with pain and regret, too. Every day. What more could I have done? What more should I have done? Did I get so lost in Andi’s pain that I couldn’t see the world in the right light any longer?
Before Andi took her life, she woke up early one pretty winter’s day, made pancakes in the shape of snowmen for the kids, and then we all went skiing. Lucky, too. That night, when we returned home and put the kids to bed, I walked out of the shower to find Andi sitting on the bed with all her jewelry spread out before her. When I asked her what she was doing, she said, “Making plans for the future.” She had Post-its with names written on them attached to different pieces of her favorite jewelry. The pearls her parents had gotten her after her college graduation were to go to her sister. The diamond earrings I had bought her for our first wedding anniversary were to go to our daughter. An onyx ring was marked for my son to give to his future wife. Every piece that held a special memory was earmarked for someone she loved. Except for two pieces: her wedding ring, and a necklace of Leland Blue that I bought for her at Becky Thatcher Designs when we had a staycation and spent a week traveling around our own area. “My wedding ring stays with me,” she said. “And this necklace is for you.” When I asked her why, she said because it tells a story that someone will need to hear. She said I needed to be prepared for one day a long time in the future.
She was so happy, better than she had been in months. I actually I thought she was at a turning point. I never put two-and-two together.
She took her own life the next day. I buried her with her wedding ring. I kept the necklace.
I thought of all this when I returned home after you left.
Do you know the story of Leland Blue? To me, nothing is more representative of northern Michigan than this stone. It’s beautiful, hard to find, rare and fragile, just like love and life. Actually, it’s not a stone—just like love and life are never what they appear to be on the surface. Leland Blue is slag, a byproduct of smelting iron ore. During a short period of time in the late 1800s, iron ore was mined in northern Michigan, and shipped to a smelting plant near Leland, Michigan. During the smelting process, the iron ore was heated in huge furnaces to separate iron from the byproducts, poured into molds and shipped south to the steel mills in Pennsylvania and Ohio. The byproduct was dumped into Lake Michigan. The waves and the sand polished the slag into beautiful stones. These stones occur in as many shades of blue as the summer sky in Michigan: Arctic blue, cerulean, sapphire and sky blue. Some are streaked with shades of greens and grays.
A therapist once suggested that Andi focus her attention on something that got her outside, grounded her, allowed her to lose herself for a while. She became obsessed with collecting stones. Most people focus on fossils or Petoskey stones, but she loved Leland Blue. She walked the shoreline for hours. After a while, she knew where to look. The reflection of the sunlight off the rocks under the water brought the stone’s blue hues to her attention. She began to wear waders, carry a walking stick and a strainer, with a pouch for the rocks tied around her waist like an apron.
Sometimes, I’d have to go find her and tell her it was time to come home. She loved late fall and winter most, when the locals owned the beach again.
Andi was truly connected to that stone. She loved that Leland Blue captured all the natural beauty of Michigan: the color of the water and the texture of the sand. When we found that necklace on vacation, Andi cried, like all those days she’d spent searching had led her here to discover her greatest find: a necklace filled with Leland Blue.
Becky Thatcher herself told Andi that the stone’s color and brushlike marks reminded her of Van Gogh’s skies, like in Starry Night. She also said that the stone was not easy to work with because the stone is porous, pitted from air bubbles, often dull and fractures easily. The beauty, of course—be it in a stone or a person—lies in the imperfections. The magic is found in our foibles and fragility. The fractured are the most interesting because our lines, wrinkles, breaks, fault lines and holes—be they on our souls, hearts or bodies—tell a story.
The summer day Andi and I bought that necklace was spectacular. The temperatures were in the upper seventies, the breeze smelled like the lake, and the sky was, literally, Leland Blue. We went to the beach and walked the shoreline. People stopped us left and right to admire her necklace. We walked forever, and suddenly, right in front of Andi, was a huge piece of Leland Blue, the biggest she’d ever seen or found. She pulled it from the water.
“Why can’t life always be this easy?” she marveled.
“It can,” I told her. “It can.”
You ask why I speak so openly about my late wife? It’s so I will remember. So others will feel more open to discuss their own grief and loss. So we can see what a blessing simply being alive is.
Sometimes, you have to search a long time to find what you’re looking for. Sometimes, the answer lies right in front of your eyes, like that stone. Sadly, we too often don’t see it because we’re blinded by our sorrow.
I’ve always wondered why I kept this necklace, but it’s as if Andi knew you would come into my life and need to hear the story.
When I see you, I see blue.
I know you see it, too: in the desert sky, Lake Michigan, the color of the ice on the bay.
But I want you to see that color without feeling blue.
No matter what life throws at you, never forget you are loved, that your life matters, and that your impact on others can never be measured but can always be felt when it’s removed.
Take care of yourself, Sonny.
I’ve enclosed some Blue for You… I know it’s a big, ole personal gift from a relative stranger, but my heart is in this letter, in this blue and already a part of you. Be still. Stop running. Find peace. Be sunny, Sonny.
Mason
I am crying before I even open the box. The necklace is spectacular.
I put it around my neck and suddenly the world comes into focus, like a crystal clear, summer sky in Michigan, one that is so, so blue it makes your heart ache and also makes you realize that this very moment is an incredible gift.
And, for a moment, your own blues fade away.