Christopher/Kristofer

Tonight was the last class of my Infancy & Childhood Development course. For the past four weeks I, along with a group of other students, navigated through 12 weeks worth of intensive information about children and how they develop physically, cognitively and socially.

The class opened my eyes and my heart to the possibility of becoming a parent, giving of myself to a small person who depends on my love, guidance and knowledge in order to grow into a productive, functioning, loving member of society. Class left me with a spark of desire to have a child of my own, someday. Physiologically, I have a few years left to make that happen if that’s what I choose to do.

After class, I chatted for a while with a fellow student. I told her I thought I’d like to have a child. She began encouraging me, telling me that I could do it. “You don’t even have to be married,” she said. “You can do it single.”

She had no idea. She assumed (I’m assuming) that I am “that single, outgoing, independent woman of the oughts”…or maybe I projected that assumption onto her. At any rate, I needed to let her know. I told her about Chris and how he died and then I told her a truth that I have been suppressing for while.

“I never wanted kids. Neither of us did,” I said. “But now that I want to have a child of my own, I wish he was here to have one with.” The tide inside of me began to rise. I could feel tightness constricting my throat, but nonetheless, I kept a stiff upper lip.

I do wish Chris could father my child. In a way, he will father my child. If I do become a mother, I will be teaching my son or daughter all of the things Chris taught me, like love, patience, acceptance…and, of course, microbrews. No child of mine is going to drink the leading brand..

I’m not the type of person who feels sorry for herself or who feels that life is unfair. I don’t mope around. I get things done. I move forward. I help others and I love as much as I can. But last night I was so overcome with self-pity and anger that I wanted to put my fist through the train window, the escalator, a parked car, some trees and my front door.

Last night, I welcomed a brand new aspect of grief into my life. I’m not quite sure what to call this latest surge. A post-grief backlash? Anger rewound? Sadness about something I can never go back and get? I was grieving about something I never wanted when Chris was alive. He has been dead for two years and seven months at this point, so having his baby is so impossible that I can’t believe I have entered this state of sadness. It won’t last, but it sure hurts right now.

Ever since Chris began chemo and the doctors told us he would be sterile, I had maintained that I didn’t care, that I just wanted him to live. Babies meant very little to me and next to Chris getting well, they were demoted to “nothing’ status. I had become so accustomed to suppressing, that I told myself over and over I had no regrets, that we didn’t want children together, so the fact that we never had kids simply was not a regret of mine. Last night, I got blindsided by my admission that I wish I had our child, that I wish we had put Chris’ sperm into a sperm bank before he was poisoned with chemo. Then I got double-blindsided by the reality that a child of Chris’, without Chris here to enjoy that child, would always make me sad.

The woman I was talking with after class said to me, “You always bring him with you.” I already know that, and even though I was thankful to her for talking to me and not running away, I suspected that she really didn’t have a true understanding of what it feels like to say that’s true only because you have nothing else left. I told her of my plan to name my child Christopher (boy) or Kristofer (girl). I want to honor him that way. It felt really nice to say that out loud to somebody so caring and open to talking with me.

And now I’m sitting on the orange line train on my way home, writing this, choking back the same old tears I smothered behind the cover of Stephen King’s “Desperation” back in November of 2001, as I sat on the green line trolley, in the grips of terror at the thought that Chris might die. His death was only a possibility back then.

Grief doesn’t get better. It gets different. Clay has said it again and again. My experience is that grief remains painful and maintains its ability and natural tendency to ambush at the most inopportune moments, like after a 3-hour class, when I’m alone on campus, at night, at Ruggles station, where the most warmth I can find is the T official smiling through the window of the steel-gray, bullet proof (I assume) information booth.

I’m okay. I just need to see Clay.