Control

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Packing up a few meagre belongings to take with me to the respite center was difficult. I kept having to remind myself that it wasn‟t a trip or a vacation, and that I wouldn‟t need much. Partly because I wouldn‟t be leaving the building much (if at all) and partly because I probably wouldn‟t be there long.

That was the part that scared me.

I knew it wasn‟t far off. It was a feeling, perhaps intuition. Physically I was wasting away, mentally I was broken, and emotionally, completely shattered. I didn‟t have anything left, so in my mind it was only logical that I was weeks, but more likely days, away.

I packed the basics. A couple shirts. A couple pajama pants. Toiletries. A book. Everything I packed made me feel stupid. What did one pack to take with them to a place like this? I packed and repacked my small black bag four times. In the end, it was still only half full.

This transition was the first real stage that Aiden was finding difficult. How do you explain to your five year old that daddy had to go stay somewhere else so that he wouldn‟t hurt you? Even more, how do you explain that daddy won‟t be coming home again?

The best way we found to explain this all to him was that, as he knew I was already sick, I was going to a place to get help. He equated this to be like a hospital or doctors office, both of which he was not a fan of. He cried, reflecting his own white coat syndrome onto me. I promised him that the doctors and nurses would take good care of me and that he had nothing to worry about. It was a partial lie.

After I finished packing, I tossed my bag at the front door near the foot of the stairs. I was wearing gray track pants and a t-shirt. I assumed it didn‟t matter what I wore at this point. I doubted there was much of a dress code.

I stood at the foot of the stairs for a long while, looking between the entrance to the kitchen and that of the living room. I walked into the kitchen, looking around. I ran my hand over the top of the wooden kitchen table, grazing my fingers along the smooth counter tops. I stood in the center of the kitchen and looked around, taking it in.

I then padded across the hall and into the living room. I again stood in the center, looking at the couches, the TV. I stared out the front window for a long while, watching the cars slowly drive down our street, the wind blowing the tall oak tree in our front yard. I stepped up to the pictures that hung on the walls, my eyes tracing each image.

I did this in each room of the house, touching and staring at every possible item that made up my home. I was trying my best to commit every detail to my cloudy and failing memory. I not only wanted to remember every tiny feature of the home I had built with, and for, my family, but I needed to.

Soon I would be going to my final place. The last building, the last room I would ever occupy. I needed any part of my familiar and once happy home to take with me, even if it was only in my now faulty memory.

When I had finished in the house, I retreated to the backyard. I wandered around in the grass, feeling the cool texture beneath my feet. I was growing increasingly tired from my trek, but I was determined not to stop. Not yet. I walked to the back of our property to the tree house I had built for Aiden with my brother and Josh. I sat on the small steps leading up to the door and looked back across the yard towards the house. I wouldn‟t see anymore of Aiden‟s life. I wouldn‟t coach his little league or help him with homework. I wouldn‟t see him go to high school; or get his licence. I wouldn‟t send him off on his first date, or to college, or watch him get married. I was not only losing my own life, but I was losing out on my son‟s.

I think the latter was the hardest to deal with.

By the time Adyson came home, I was sitting on one of the chairs on the back deck, just looking out across the yard. It was quiet, most of the inhabitants on our street were at work, the children at school. We had allowed Aiden this day away from class. He was having enough of a hard time with this, forcing him to go to school seemed cruel. He wanted to go with us, but we knew that wasn‟t an option. So instead he chose to visit his grandparents, a request we easily granted.