The First Twenty Reasons I Didn’t Write on April 22

 The First Twenty Reasons I Didn’t Write on April 22

1.      I am still a working woman in 2022.

2.     I have three sons who need to be fed and taken places and my husband can’t do every bloody thing for us, though he does do most of it.

3.      I have a dog.

4.      That week, I baked a cake and forgot the sugar. And I baked a corn pudding and forgot the eggs. (Truly disgusting, thanks for asking.) Also, I forgot the password on my work computer after a long weekend. Naturally, I convinced myself I had dementia or a brain tumor like my old granny, Lillian, and I got so wrapped up imagining my funeral, shopping for cotton shrouds and seaweed caskets for my plot at the green cemetery that I didn’t remember to write.  

5.      I couldn’t find my special composition notebook with the gold tape on the spine.

6.      We were getting close to my baby brother’s 47^th birthday but he died at 35 and I was too sad to write that.

7.       At midnight, on April 22, my 16-year-old released an album, entirely of his own creation. A whole album he wrote and made beats for and produced and recorded, sitting at my Mom’s old desk. Eleven songs. And, that morning, the morning the album dropped, he snapped at me, which he never does.

8.       His album cover was a picture of Baby Him on Baby Brother’s lap. And everything, on the day that that picture was taken, was SO damn peachy and good. And I saw it and I thought, “Well, isn’t that a nice tribute.” And, at about 8:10 that morning, I started to cry.

9.       I listened to the album from start to finish and I was in awe over the enormity of the task the boy had taken on and the work involved and how had he done it while still getting great grades, except the 13 in Algebra II. And Holy Hell, he must have been so excited and terrified. And I wanted to go pick him up from school and tell him how proud I was and that he could snap at me because I get it.

10.   I listened again around 9:00. I heard something about cannabis and several references to guns. Then, I cried because I must have done a terrible job on him. Despite late night chats when he was tiny about making the world better with peace and kindness and love. “Momma,” he’d say, “let’s have a CONVERSATION.”

11.   And he wrote a line about a mother crying over a baby book because her child was such a disappointment.

12.   I went to get my eyes checked and they’re not so good. But they’re not so bad, either. Definitely not bad enough for a cane or a support animal but probably bad enough to need some $450 frames, before the lenses. And William, the sales guy, brought me no less than 80 pairs to try on and who can actually choose without a support animal or a stylish best friend and so I made the receptionist laugh until she cried but I left without even getting a copy of my prescription and I have yet to return.

13.   I went to the dry cleaners to pick up my favorite pink pants and I couldn’t stop crying and I scared the crap out of the poor guy who came to my car. He brought me my pants and wished me a “better day.”

14.   I asked Siri to play something that would make me stop crying but she responded, “Now playing sad music.” When I asked for happy music, she played Darius Rucker, which made me think of my son, W's, toddlerhood, when that was Our Song and now he's too cool for such things. So, you know, I cried.

15.   I listened to the son’s album again and was moved by the spirit of the thing, the depth, the cadence, the power of his words. I decided he might have listened to our conversations and decided to change the world in his own way. That made me cry, too.

16.   The recording artist can be found on Apple Music and Spotify and YouTube and maybe even My Space but he will not, under any circumstances, let me be in the video. I can’t even play the Grim Reaper. Even though I have professional acting training. Nope. Nope. NO.

17.   I cried so much that my neighbor, Mary, had to come over with some tea and raspberries to get me calmed down and rehydrated.

18.   And my friend, Kim, had to remind me that, while I had, indeed, cried for the better part of the first half of the day, there was a whole ‘nother half to go and she reminded me that it was likely to get better, what with tea and raspberries and our big presentation at the university in the afternoon.

19.    I didn’t write because I had a presentation with three of my colleagues at the university that afternoon. Something for alumni about our ethical obligation to practice self-care. And it went okay.

20.   And after the presentation, I sat with a crowd of alumni and the new dean. And we laughed and we talked about the fact that the morning of April 22 had been a crappy morning for quite a few of us. “But it’s better now, right?” said Amy. And I agreed. But I didn’t write about it. Until today.