BJ is gone, and that won’t change. Thing is, I’m still not hurting, no matter how much I love her, and thats great. I was able to make her parents feel a little better today, and I felt more a part of their family than I think I ever did.
G and Pigpen went to bed like happy little children.
Frankly, if an uninformed observer popped in, you would think that the kids mother died years ago. Sure, Pigpen will tell you, in the matter of fact voice of a four year old “My Mommy’s dead.”, but thats what it is. A matter of fact.
G still doesn’t like to talk about it much, but he will. He looks out the window, thinking. I wonder what he’s thinking when he does that.
Then he makes a joke, or says some kind of MastaG smartass garbage, and its right back to normal.
—
Yesterday, all this bothered me, I think because I wanted reverence. I wanted all of us to be humble and realize what we lost.
Why?
BJ wouldn’t have that, she was as smartass as G, in her own way. She’d want the kids to feel secure (they do) and for me to get on with life (I’m working on it).
Its only been 5 days since her death, and I feel at terms with it. I fully expect the other shoe to drop, but so what if it does? I’ll make it because I’ll need to.
Right now, there really isn’t a lot of pain in this house. In my dark room right now, theres a little bit of loneliness, for her warm body in bed. For somebody to talk with.
I feel peace. Its been many nights since I felt peace. I forget that I started this process at the beginning of the month, so as far as my bed is concerned, she died 3 weeks ago.
Whatever. I’ll just ride out the peace as long as I can. I feel really, really good about today.
—
We’ve been doing this for 10 years, BJ! Wish you could have made it this far, my baby.
So, I told you once that I had the biggest feeling of BJ on Saturday night.
What I didn’t mention (because one with an objective mind can never be too sure if these things are figments of imagination, or chemicals in the brain, or the divine hand of a cosmic deity) was that the feeling of having BJ with me came a few times over the next two days. Its how I kept in such a good mood, because I was constantly feeling like she was close, that she was holding me, that she loved me. She would talk to me without words, some kind of feeling in the back of my skull that told me she was telling me something. Something about love, and peace.
So, Monday, I was getting ready to go to the funeral home to deal with the stuff there, and then follow wherever the wind blew me (ultimately to the Blueberry Farm, and my boys), I talked to BJ.
I told her “Baby, I feel you. I know you’re here for me, and holding me, and giving me what peace you can give me. I’m strong, and your mother needs help. You parents both need help, because they’re hurting more than I am now. I love you, and I’ll see you again.”
After that, I drove on. I didn’t really feel her again, but I figured (as one will do) that I was deluding myself. Monday went by, and Tuesday went by, and I was grumpy and pissy and stressing over future plans.
Today was better
—
So, we went down this afternoon for MastaG’s birthday thing at BJ’s parents house (Mamaw and Papaw). BJ’s sister and brother in law were there, her brother had to work in Alabama.
Let me jump ahead and say we had a great time. I was planning on bringing some of the loot I got him, but totally forgot it. He got a nice expensive remote control monster thing from Mams and Paps (as they’re affectionately called by the boys), and a prepaid telephone from his aunt and uncle. Its the dawn of a new thing for ol’ MastaG, and he has to be responsible for minutes. I think it’ll be good for him, if he doesn’t lose the phone (as he is want to do).
—
When we got there, we were starving. It was decided to order some Ruby Tuesdays take out (who forgot to put my burger on the menu, but I ate a little off everybody elses, so it was OK). BJ’s Dad and I went to order and pick it up. I ordered a nice Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, which was tasty.
While we were there, we talked. He was telling me on the drive that their pain was indescribable, that a parent should never lose a daughter. Now, I had resolved not to get into a grief pissing match, because those never turn out well (even on pay per view), no matter how nicely I try to say it, so I sat quietly in the car as he talked.
Now, I’m not trying to say that they’re inconsiderate, just that they’re in so much pain that they’re not really seeing outside of it. They’re both the best people on earth, and totally where BJ got her BJness from.
I digress.
So, anyway, I was sipping my beer, and talking to him (who doesn’t like beer, the weirdo) and he mentioned something that happened Monday. He said that Barbara went around the house saying that she had the strongest smell of BJ’s perfume. She went around and asked if anybody else could smell it, and nobody could. Jim didn’t make much out of it, but I did. You might too.
Or maybe not. I’m not going to rub peoples noses in the things that I think, because people haven’t seen what I’ve seen. I’ve talked to some people that weren’t touched by The Beauty, or any sense of anything greater than the meat that we’re all made of. I respect that more than you can imagine, because I lived the past 10 years thinking that, and because I can’t, and to a certain degree won’t, explain what I’ve seen, because I don’t know how to.
Furthermore, I understand that I don’t know. Maybe The Beauty was a release of endorphins caused by stress. Maybe my overworked brain zigged when it should have zagged, and gave me the feeling that I described on a Thursday a few weeks ago. Maybe.
Maybe BJ wasn’t telling me that she was with God that day I felt her hand squeeze and her eyebrows move as I talked about what I’d seen. Maybe she was telling me I was full of shit. Maybe she was telling me that she smelled something funny. Maybe she wasn’t as awake as she’d looked, despite the silent tears as I told her how much the boys love her, and how safe they’ll be.
I’ll never know, in my meaty body, even if you think you do.
Well, the obits are out. I had the funeral home truncate the one for the News Sentinel to save a buck, but the Oak Ridger had the whole deal, and the Oak Ridge Observer should have it tomorrow, as it’s a weekly. It’ll be online a few days after that, maybe next week.
Oak Ridge really became a home for BJ. She was just starting to feel like a real part of this town, what with our efforts for the school system, and getting to know (and irritate) a few movers and shakers. Sure, most of them knew her as GAC, but a few knew BJ also. I’ll keep up whatever work we were starting, as soon as I know how to do it again (basically, when people stop looking at me weird, or after that nervous breakdown I figures in the cards somewhere in the next few months).
Thanks, Oak Ridge. Thanks for letting her in, while you could. She appreciated that more than she’d tell you.
To the same extent, she was all over the blogs and online world of the area. We made friends, and I’d go to my regular stomping grounds online (the Oak Ridger forums, Doug and Cathy’s places, Joe Powell, Mike Silence, places like that) to find that she beat me there, and left some sort of funny comment (she had a wicked sense of humor, as anybody reading the archives can tell).
After years of being alone, we were branching out, and finding a reception where we looked.
For that, folks, I thank you as well. She would too.
—
Heading over to BJ’s folks for MastaG’s birthday party in a few. Should be fun! I’ll be back home (and online) later today.
So, we drove home from the doctor, knowing that the worst thing that could have happened had happened.
BJ was pregnant. Our lives were over. A BABY.
Oh shit.
I recall the drive home from the doctor, BJ and I were sitting in the back seat of her parents conversion van, and her mother was driving us home. Silence. The kind of silence that you can cut with a knife.
BJ and I held hands. My stomach was a twisted knot of fear. The fight or flight urge was big, and all I could do was sit quietly in the back of the van with her, waiting for the moment when her parents would sneak up with a gun on me (not that they’re those kind of people, but DAMN, I got their baby PREGNANT!).
I tell you this right now. I don’t think anybody is ever qualified to say a damn thing about abortion until they lay together in a bed late at night, with a centimeter long love fetus developing in the womb of your 19 year old, educationless and jobless girlfriend. Hell, I don’t think I’m qualified to say it, but I’ll always regret that that night, an abortion sounded like the only idea that would work.
The next morning, we changed our minds. We were going to be parents.
—
And with that, we had to grow the hell up. We fell deeper into each other, i dedicated my entire being to making sure that our live together would be good.
I started hunting for jobs. I had very little work experience, the part time job at Sophies, and a high school grocery bagging job were it. I ended up washing dishes for 6 bucks an hour (big money for me, at the time) at TGIFridays.
It was evil. The rest of the back staff were 20 something year old thugs, who didn’t like me, for reasons I don’t understand. I was young, and probably dumb, but damn, they were assholes. Total dicks. I worked 8 hours a day, and then came home to BJ, a 30 minute drive both ways. We had to save up money to get our own place, we weren’t going to be those kind of people who would raise their kid at the parents house.
TGIFridays closed ‘unexpectedly’ 3 weeks after I was hired. Bastards.
—
While I kept looking for gainful employment, BJ scored a job in the housewares section of Sears, at West Town Mall. I used to drive her to work, and then beat the street trying to find a job (which was really REALLY hard, nobody wanted to hire somebody without experience). I remember reading, and really enjoying Anne Rice’s Memnoch the Devil in the smoking section of Sears, while I waited for her to get off work. It was always such a joy to see her walk out, with her big smile, and growing belly.
She wasn’t having a ton of fun either. She developed a pinched nerve in her hip around the 4th month that bugged the hell out of her for the rest of her term. She was gaining all the weight she lost during her months locked in her bedroom the previous winter (yes, I ruined the only time she was really, really happy with her body). She was working with some real battleaxes in the houseware department, who weren’t interested in sharing the 5 percent commission she’d get on that luggage, and just helped themselves to her customers.
To this day, because of the crappy assed way that Sears does their employees (and ultimately, their customers), I wish them nothing but ill. I love walking through the dying store in Oak Ridge, just to bask in it.
I digress.
We were still looking all over the place for an apartment, but didn’t really have the money to do it.
Finally, I got the job I needed. BJ was just about to give up on Sears when it happened, so it couldn’t be at a better time,
—
BJ’s sister Sonja worked at Ryans on Kingston Pike at the time, and was able to talk them into giving me a dishwashing job there. The store was really hurting for a dishwasher, it turned out. They split the job between me and another guy, with a couple of non-english speaking folks working as backup. Because of the lack of back house workers, I was able to average about 80 hours a week during this time. At six fifty an hour, this made for some decent scratch, at least to us!
We moved into a very modest little apartment in Knoxville called Huntington Place. The demo apartment looked like a quaint, decent little place. The actual apartment, well, not so much. It was kinda like the cabins you’d stay at in camp, old buildings, wood floor, cheap plaster walls. There were four units that shared a front door, a screen door, so the hall outside was cold in the winter and hot in the summer.
It was awesome, it was ours.
I remember the day we moved in there, and got our first telephone number. I had to work (of course) and BJ and her folks moved us in. By now, BJ was probably about 7 months along, in late summer. I was working a double shift, from 6 AM until about 10 PM or so (usually later, because there are always those customers who have to come in right at quitting time and spend forever eating… bastards), and she called me at work to tell me she had a surprise for me!
I went to the new house, walked in there, took a shower (BJ couldn’t stand the smell of the nastyness that would be on me when I got off work, so she always marched me into the shower as soon as I got home, and then we’d drain the inevitable infection from under my fingernails… dishrooms, good stuff), and she sat me down to a candlelit dinner of spaghetti and toast. She was proud, because she made the toast (BJ never was a cook, her mom made the spaghetti).
It was the most romantic meal I have ever eaten. It was dark, and our new home, with most of our stuff still in boxes, was lit by the flickering orange light of the candle.
We went to bed, and I got up for work the next day.
—
And the next day, and the next day. By now BJ had quit work, and was getting BIG. We had no friends down in Knoxville, and only one car that I had to use to go to work (she didn’t like driving that late at night).
She sat, alone, in a little apartment, with nothing to do but watch network TV on rabbit ears, and read the same books over and over again. To this day, I regret the pain that she had to have suffered in silence, with nobody to talk to, while I worked.
When I got home, we’d go out to eat. We didn’t have the sense to save money, what I made we usually spent on food at restaurants, just enjoying ourselves before the realities of parenthood jumped in. We’d talk, we never once, in the years we were together, had a meal where nobody had anything to say. We were always so comfortable with each other.
We tried different restaurants. Afterwards, we’d go back home to watch a little TV, and go to bed.
Life was so good to us. I mean, looking back, it was a hard time, but we were so damn happy we never noticed. The days I’d have off work (and I did have them, once a week or so) were wonderful, we’d just stay home, and play cards, or we’d drive out and wander around. Life was so good.
I had proposed to BJ in those early days, playing around in her bedroom (we were wearing nice clothes, for the heck of it, and I offered my hand in marriage to her, which she accepted in style). In May, while she worked at Sears, I snuck enough money to buy a $140 engagement ring and make it official. I went down on one knee in the mall. She wasn’t surprised, because we never really had to say anything about marriage. What we had was so much deeper than marriage, it became moot.
Anyway, one day during those Huntington Place/Ryans days, in early October, we figured we’d go ahead and get hitched. She didn’t want a wedding, which I was more than happy to agree to (I wondered many times during the years if that was a concession to me, but she assured me that she saw a wedding as a huge pain in the ass. I often cited this reason to friends as one of the reasons I love her so much). I had a day off work on a Tuesday (I think), and we got dressed up and moseyed down to the Knox County Courthouse, and got married.
They had a pastor there, a poor old guy who must have recently had a stroke, because we couldn’t understand a word he said as he did the little quiet ceremony. It was witnessed by the clerk, and a guy from the News Sentinel who put the announcement in a paper. Theres a copy of it in a red rubbermaid container in the attic.
We wanted to make the wedding ours, so nobody knew about it until afterwards. We called her parents, and they bought us a bottle of champagne and a new TV. The TV is in my bedroom now, just to the left of where I’m laying here, writing this post.
On our wedding night, we went back home, and watched ER (so it was a Thursday, not a Tuesday!), and drank the champagne (her only pregnancy alcohol, so don’t get bent out of shape). Life was so good.
—
I can think back on many private memories in that apartment. Moments that would be meaningless to anybody but me anymore, but moments that I treasure more than anything earthly. Moments of tenderness, moments of love. Moments of laughter, of happiness. We had each other, we knew by then that we’d always be together. I loved her more every day, which I continued doing to this day, and still continue doing. I’ve always told her that, but I don’t know if she believed me.
Meanwhile, BJ was getting bigger and bigger. We had baby stuff that our parents were getting for us, a crib, a swing, carseat, all the accessories of a baby in the 20th century.
We were poor, and on Tenncare, so we got the kind of treatment that you get when you’re poor and on Tenncare. BJ always complained about the bedside manner of her OBGYNs, and the clinic she went to.
We found out that the baby was going to be a boy, and picked out names when she was around 3 or 4 months along. We were at the Chattanooga library, poring through book names. The boy name we came up with pretty quickly, Gabriel Ian. We had a computer game called Gabriel Knight, and BJ really liked the name Gabriel.
The girl, was a bit tricker. We finally settled on Anastasia Plum for the girls name. This is a name that I would still place on a little girl with pride, although I think I’m about the only person in the world who thinks so (I’m sure some of you out there will prove that wrong), My sisters always joked that we did great boy names, and crummy girls names.
Well, turned out that it was a moot point, because it was going to be our Gabriel.
Sorry about the backtrack
—
So, bigger and bigger and bigger. BJ was huge. She was a little girl, 5′2″, and I’m 6′4″, so fate would have to dictate that BJ be stuck with a mammoth baby. The due date came and went, and sailed by. I have reams of paper that we wrote contraction times on, getting closer and closer, but never making that 5 minutes apart rush to the hospital time.
BJ was getting pissed. She’d constantly say to little fetal Gabe “OK, Mommy wants you OUT! Time to get OUT!”, but, like G, he just wouldn’t respond.
Finally, on the night of November 20, we had false labor pains take us to the hospital. The doctor there couldn’t believe that BJ wasn’t induced, but he must have checked who our insurance was, because instead of inducing, he stretched BJ’s cervix.
Damn, that hurt. Hell, I could feel it, and I don’t even have those parts. Shit, I still feel it. Ugg.
He said if THAT didn’t start it within 24 hours, to come back for the induction.
—
We went home, and went to bed. Got up the next morning, November 21, and I went to work. By now, I was working 30 or so hours a week, because I wanted to be ready to take off at a moments notice. I had about two weeks off scheduled, so I could help take care of things.
I was terrified. Absolutely terrified. No amount of reading, or work, or preparation, can get you ready for having a kid at 18. Nothing. It is damn near the scariest thing you can do in this world, the sudden, lifelong, obligation to a helpless human being.
Mortifying.
—
The 21st came without event. I went to work, and came home, and still nothing. BJ started contracting around 8, and she said they felt ‘real’. They were still 30 minutes apart, so we tried to get some sleep. I remember laying down with her, knowing full well that this would be our last sleep as a childless couple. After this sleep, there’d be a kid.
We woke up at about midnight (rather, I did, I never did believe BJ slept that night) and headed to the hospital. I called family and friends, and they started making it up.
The maternity ward was packed at UT, so BJ had to go to a common room, and I wasn’t allowed in. That was a crushing insult.
I wanted to be with my wife. She needed me, we were inseparable, and heres this battleaxe of a nurse telling me to wait.
I waited. I guess when it comes to hospitals, I’m a follow the rules kinda guy. Or a sissy.
Finally, at around 8 AM, BJ got a room. I went in with her, and irritated her by dozing off a few times. She finally threw a book at me, which kept me awake.
She was tied down to the bed. She wasn’t dilating very much, only a few centimeters, but that didn’t seem to concern the nurses or doctors. I sat in there with BJ for a while, when suddenly, around 11 AM, the fetal heartrate machine started wigging out!
Nurses flooded into the room. It was decided that an emergency c-section was needed, that Gabe was going into fetal distress, and by the way, you can’t come, wait in the waiting room. I had to be escorted out, because I wouldn’t go.
I missed the birth of my son, at 11:19 AM, on November 22, 1996.
10 years ago, we became parents. Right now.
—
Gabe was shown to us in the waiting room, and placed in the nursery, where a nurse fed him a bottle, which may have caused his preference for the bottle rather than the tit. BJ never was able to nurse him, which I didn’t mind so much, because it meant that I got a share of that feeding time.
I used to stare into his face, those tiny eyes, and clutching fingers, as he sucked the bottle. I stared, and I wondered what he’d look like now. I don’t remember what I saw, so I’m not sure how accurate it was.
—
BJ, you did an amazing job. We created him, and he’s a marvel. He’s so strong, BJ, he tries to look after everybody else, even if I don’t let him. He loves you so much, but he keeps going with a smile and a joke.
He’s our Gabe, BJ. Thats our baby boy, now 10 years old. I’m sorry you missed this, angel.
I love you. So. Much.
You became an amazing mother, despite how scared you were.
Had a great nights sleep. Before I went to bed, I wrote the next part of our story, which will publish through the magic of the internet at the minute of G’s birth. Technology is wonderful.
I took Pigpen to school today, and there were two mystery cards on the van for the boys. Thanks!
MastaG and I are staying home, being slackers. He’s so much fun! We yelled at each other, we threatened each other (all mockingly, don’t get alarmed), and now he’s digging around for software to install. He’s a good kid, and I’m so proud of him. He’s going to be big before I know it. Hell, he already is.
—
I’m feeling great this morning. Yesterday, I got ungrounded and emotional, and I regret that, because of pride. Ah, well.
With regards to what to do with BJ, I’m realizing I don’t care about her carbon, or whatever. I don’t. She never did care what would happen to her after death. I might still do the diamond thing, just to make her involved in something like that, but it’d be more for me than for her.