Chapter 8: Leap Years (pages 72-83)

Every day, births, deaths, baptisms. Near deaths.

            Aaron was born on July 1, 1982. Then killed in action on April 26, 2004. Others who’ve died on April 26: John Wilkes Booth, Gypsy Rose Lee, Count Basie, and Lucille Ball to name only a few. Of course, many were born on that day. Baptized then, was William Shakespeare, on April 26, 1564. April is also the month that claimed Shakespeare’s life.

            April begins the same day of the week as July in all years. January joins in this sameness during leap years. I was born January 1955, on a Friday. Not a leap year.

Leap years interest me. It was a leap year I last saw my son alive. He left for his second trip on February 29, 2004, a Sunday. The first Sunday of Lent.

            Aaron was born on a Thursday. I’ll always remember, because Aaron’s dad told me it’d be hard for him to take extra time off from work, so I needed to have Aaron on his scheduled day off.

            I’d already been in the hospital for two weeks as the boy was giving me fits even then, and by Thursday, I had dilated to four. Still, on that day, just like the others, I snuck out my room and into the entrance of the incline between the two floors of the hospital. I walked up and down this same stairwell without stairs, one I’d traveled up and down since I was a child.

            Going to the hospital had been a big deal for me as a child, what with the candy machine to stand and wish in front of. Mmmh, I’ll take the Cherry Mash…. Too, the import of the women in white. Straight hair was pinned tight under those hat-wings upon their stern heads. I used to study their stockings, seamed and straight. These women of substance stood in stark contrast to the picture of Jesus just outside their sight. I’d sit in the night and look at Him. It scared me some. The illumination from a brassy lamp shadowed the face of this kind-looking man who stood in sandals, his dark hair as long as mine had once been. The women in white had warned me to stay out of the stairwell. I think it was there my fascination with heaven was birthed. Intrigued I was with this unseen world, a world full of people, a few I’d once known. How strange it all existed without me.

            And here I was again, but this time on a dissimilar covert mission. I started the journey up the black mat, turned around on the second floor, headed down again. Up, down, up, down. My water broke there in the stairwell, in front of The Good Shepherd on a Thursday, Doug’s day off.

            Aaron’s two half-brothers, Eric and Dana, about twelve and thirteen at the time, were spending the summer with us. They popped wheelies up and down the hospital’s hallways while I labored in a hot room. Sometimes they popped in and checked on me, but soon enough, back into their game they sped.

            Doug was there when the doctor brought Aaron out from the delivery room later that night—we were both crazy with joy. I wanted a hamburger with mayonnaise, right after a cigarette.

            Three days later, on the day Americans celebrate with fireworks, the anniversary of our Independence, I heard the second holler of my son’s voice down the hallway of the hospital. It would be much later I’d sort of view his circumcision as Aaron’s covenant with independence. But he did have a good set of lungs on him.

            After I got Aaron home on the Fourth of July, I cooked a ton of beef, fried potatoes, poured huge glasses of milk—protein and carbs cured our starvation. Doug considered it his earthly-fatherly duty to ensure that everybody worked out daily and filled once flattened bellies to discomfort. That same night, the father-coach took Aaron out to the weight room, one set up in the garage. He wanted to “introduce Aaron to the smell of sweat early,” he’d said. Later, while the others slept, I laid awake, and as I’d do for the next twenty-one years plus, I waited on Aaron.

            The clock ticked.

Our Gregorian calendar is such that every year divisible by four is a leap year, but every year divisible by one hundred is not a leap year, unless the year is also divisible by four hundred, then it is still a leap year.

            The mean time between two successive vernal equinoxes is called a tropical year, and it is about 365.2422 days long. This means that it takes 365.2422 days for the earth to make one revolution around the sun. Using a calendar with 365 days would result in an error of 0.2422 days or almost six hours per year.

            After one hundred years, this calendar would be more than twenty-four days ahead of the seasons (tropical year), which is not a desirable situation. It’s desirable to align the calendar with the seasons, and make the difference as small as possible. By adding leap years approximately every fourth year, this difference between the calendar and the seasons can be reduced significantly, and the calendar will follow the seasons much more closely than without leap years. (One day is used here in the sense of "mean solar day", which is the mean time between two transits of the sun across the meridian of the observer). So sayeth leap years something dot com.

            While math and science have a way of throwing me, the desirability of the calendar following the seasons is something I can understand. Seasons involve our senses so much—the sensory of memory.

            On April 26, 2004, I woke up around 4:00 in the morning and turned on the television in my bedroom. At least twelve Marines suffered injuries, and by 6:00 a.m., reporters announced that one had died. I typed Aaron a letter, as I’d been doing daily for several weeks, trying to sound positive, and finally landing on an effortless subject concerning how much I’d paid on each of his bills, what was left in his checking account, and how much I’d pay next time. Mundane stuff, safe, easy, factual. Outside of mentioning that we had one Marine down, I avoided the hard news of the day. He would’ve already known about the Marine, and of course, I knew it would take three weeks for him to get the letter. But communication is so important to moms and their Marines.

            I took Aaron’s dog, Hennessy, for his morning walk, and, as was the norm, I was relieved to round the corner and view my home—void of an unfamiliar government vehicle parked in front of it. No one had brought me any bad news.

            Some believe a mother knows immediately, somewhere deep within her nurturing nature, the moment that her child has suffered harm. It had been a restless night, but no worse than the night before. I knew Aaron was always in danger. But there was no sense of foreboding. At least no different from any other day.

            It was around 4:00 or 5:00 p.m. when the two Marines drove up to my house. Aaron would’ve appreciated the almost limo-like tinted windows on their silver minivan. At first, I thought it must be a friend coming to visit, but after mere moments, my eyes made the adjustment.

            My mind wasn’t far behind.

            The non-commissioned officer began to approach me. It seemed to take an eternity for him to cross my lawn—I think I must have walked some, gone to meet him halfway.

            He began, “Ma’am, are you Christy Miller?”

            The Christy has always thrown me. Only government agencies, debtors, or new teachers have ever called me by my first name. Rarely used to bless me with good news.

            “What? What did you ask me?” I think I was hollering. I thought he’d said Kristen Miller.

            No, no, I wasn’t that person.

            I saw sympathy.

            He asked me again. Time, space, neighbors, and dogs, all—everything—grew into a blazing, buzzing blur.

            I couldn’t let the Marines in my home because I’d just put my two dogs in there and Hennessy is a pit bull.

            “Can we go inside? We need to talk to you.” His wasn’t an easy job.

            “No, we’ve got to do this outside.” Mine, still the harder.

            After a muddled exchange regarding the dog situation, the other Marine, the officer, finally said, “Ma’am, your son was killed in action today in Al Anbar Province.”

            I said, “My son was killed in the firefight that’s on the television right now. He was killed in Fallujah. There’s been one Marine killed today.”

            There, in that moment, that tiniest and longest length of time, there must’ve been a mechanical failure, an embodiment of someone’s (it couldn’t have been mine) heart and brain colliding.

            “Mine,” I finished. Yes, the Marine was mine.

            I remember the sun on my face. The heat radiated on my back, tiny waves of shock cushioned the pain just enough for my mind to snap a photograph of that moment in time. The Marines’ silver minivan rested underneath my pecan trees, full and green at that time. I was in my 501 jeans, my favorite pair, bleached and cut right below the knees, holes in the backside. My T-shirt was gray and bore an image of the United States Flag; God Bless America printed in blue across my chest. I don’t have those clothes anymore. Worn, I threw them away. I think that’s why. Regretful.

            The birds fluttered and labored, chatted with their friends. It was a bright, clear day. My U.S. flag, the size of a bed sheet, flapped in the April breeze, as if to test me.

            I hold tradition high. Raised my head to meet that moment, strong and proud, like my son. My suffering started in silence and in strength. A strength not my own, hold on … you didn’t need extra strength yesterday; I give it to you, now—today. I acquiesced to the blow. Much like now, except I hold on expectantly today, as if something new will one day bloom within me, as if sorrow will no longer pursue me the way cancer stalks its cell.

            As the first anniversary of Aaron’s death approached, it was the radiance of my Morning Glories, their faces pinked and purpled by the early sun, my pecan trees budded with promise of a meaty fruit to come—life marked the day, supplemented the calendar. Springtime.

            Autumn’s memory buds work the same. Cool weather reminds me of the party we had outside my sister’s home on October 16, 2004. Lisa’s backyard was the centerpiece for our celebration. It’s here she lives with her husband, Roy, and their young daughter, Kayla. On two acres surrounded by Afghan pines, we celebrated. A promise made there, kept there.

            Roy had promised Aaron a Homecoming Party when the unit returned from their second trip. Though Aaron didn’t make it back, thirty or forty of us gathered, commemorated the fact that Aaron’s unit had made it home. Jerrod, Aaron’s best friend, and Tiffany, Aaron’s fiancée, drove down from Phoenix. Fonzie, a longtime friend of Aaron’s (a recruit in Army Basic Training when Aaron died) attended our party and eventually moved to Phoenix to live near Jerrod.

            We barbequed and served potato salad and beans from large bowls. We lit a fire in the brick belly of a pit Roy had built for this occasion. We played music and danced, we wrote messages on our beer cans, then poured the beer out into the fire, made toasts in my son’s honor. Gave thanks the others had made it home.

            We envisioned Aaron with us. And maybe he was. We conversed in winsome memory, laughed at times, and said, I bet right now he’s thinking … Rock on!

            We elicit what can’t be. And then fracture at the reality of the bizarre.

            We made it through all “the firsts” in much this same way, but I still have one more first to get through. February 29, 2008. It will be the first February 29 since that fateful day my son flew to meet his destiny.

            I take dirt and rocks from his grave and keep an old cigarette butt found in the pocket of his dress blues, not those we buried him in. I salvage any bit of DNA that may remain. I snuggle with his snuggle pillow and I search and search and search for some familiar smell—not there! Oh, deprived sensory!

            Aaron flew home for three short days, to see us before he left. Greg, Lisa, Kayla and I joined the Austin’s and Tiffany in Amarillo to visit him before he left for this final trip. While we were there, Aaron gave Kayla a Valentine’s gift.

           

Aaron was always talking about how he would never let me have a boyfriend, and if I did get a boyfriend, he would whoop him. I guess you could say he was pretty much as protective as my dad. The last Valentine’s Day I saw Aaron I remember him bringing me a small gift sack. I took the tissue out and removed the small doll inside. He was called The Perfect Man. Aaron told me this was the closest thing to a boyfriend I would get. I named him Sherman.

            Sherman spoke many kind things any girl would love to hear. He would say, “You know honey, why don’t you just relax and let me make dinner tonight.”

            “Let’s just cuddle tonight.”

            “I don’t care if we sit up all night long and just talk.”

            “Don’t change a thing. You’re just perfect the way you are.”
            “Here, you take the remote. As long as I am with you, I don’t care what we watch.” This one would be my dad as a perfect man.

            What a perfect man he was. I placed Sherman up on the shelf with all the other stuffed toys Aaron got me. I remember one day pressing Sherman’s chest to hear a line and he was gone. I pressed over and over hearing nothing but the clicking of the button inside, the battery was dead. I tried again, then many days after that, again. Nothing, so I gave up after a while.

            One day I was grieving over Aaron horribly and grabbed Sherman from my closet. I knew he wouldn’t say anything but I pressed his chest anyway. There he spoke one more sweet line and amazed me. After that, he never worked again even to this day.

            I couldn’t imagine a more perfect hand-sized doll-boyfriend than Sherman. I am very happy to add him to my shelf of dolls from Aaron. The shelf is pretty full, but not as full as I’d like it to be.

The Perfect Man. Funny. Aaron was my “precious perfect son.” A private joke, unless you knew Aaron. Once, he mixed up the envelopes of two different (very different) letters he’d written to his dad and me. The chameleon, caught! Like we hadn’t figured this out about our son in the first years of his life. Charming.

            It reminds me of a scene when he was about the same age as Kayla is now. Fifteen. And a half. At this critical age, the half is important.

            Aaron stared back at the handsome face in the full-length mirror attached to the bathroom in my bedroom. In an annoying manner, he said back to his reflection, “I’m fine….”

            I lifted my focus from the novel I was reading. “Well, Mr. Fine, why don’t you go put some of your fine self into that room of yours? You’ve been promising for a week to clean it.”

            “I will, Mom. I promise. Tomorrow.”

            I was so tired of his lame promises. They were nearly as numerous as his excuses—just a little less inventive. He’d have to work on that. Our relationship had been this way always. And it wasn’t that he didn’t appreciate me. He did. I was just so easy. I called him Mr.-give-me-take-me-buy-me.

            “Mom, will you iron these pants for me?” he asked. “And please try to get the creases down the middle this time. Last time, I had two creases—all in one leg.”

            I didn’t move. Just kept on reading.

            “Mom.... Come on ... please?”

            It was forever before I got up. But he needed to hurry. Me. Holding out as long as possible, nearly hearing what he’s thinking.

            Would she please just hurry? Smile—she likes that.

            He shot me his best. Took off to his room.

            I didn’t actually have to be in the room with him to picture the scene. He rummaged through layers of clothes, kicked over a full ashtray, probably hid his last English test, and reached under the bed for his shoes. Black. He needed black. His white ones had some chili on them still. A reminder of the last meal he had sucked down. He felt and stretched and pulled out and put on. Tied.

            I brought his jeans to him. One crease per leg. What a mom.

            One last look. The full-length mirror in his room this time. Front. Side. Turn and twist. A few moves. Back to the front again. Raise the neck, turn. “I’m so fine….”

*

Kayla tells me The Perfect Man is also known as Mr. Wonderful now. And that the price has gone way up. I don’t know how she knows that for sure. Unless Aaron told her the price of the doll.

            That’s a huge possibility.

            I miss Mr. Fine.

It will forever be the weather to remind me of the last day I’d ever catch the bold smell of cologne on his neck, his chest. That last day I hugged him next to me. So different from just sniffing a bottle of that same fragrance now. I touched his face out in the crisp air. The cold Texas day bit our noses and fingertips. We rubbed our palms, left against right. Stood there in time, outside some diner in Canyon, Texas, smoking Reds, talking low, saying our goodbyes, unaware we all had obliviously shared a final meal on Valentine’s weekend—the last time I touched his beating heart. Rubbed his strong back, held his face and wiped his tears. Oh, that God would let me hold that face just one more time.

            No, one more wouldn’t be enough.

            Not even close. Not for any of us.

            Every morning, until just recently (on this cold day in January, a leap year, 2008), I gauged where I was at. Spring would come. It just wasn’t there yet. There was a sad sameness. The stories, all shared over and over. The photos in frames, all dated. Everything was both ageless and committed to a past tense. Plans and excitement, gleaned from another source. This sameness was so new to me. I never thought about it being the same, the same. The same. My heart and mind yearned for a new thing, and after I had measured, I would think, no, not quite yet, but maybe soon. I wondered how long. If healing could only come as suddenly as loss. Sometimes I would think that, and then other times, the sorrow was almost precious to me. It became a thing less despised.

            It has become a part of me.

            True, there was much I didn’t have to worry about anymore. Aaron was safe. Spared from a great deal of pain later in life, perhaps. When I concentrated on that, when I contemplated this, I felt selfish for willing his life back to me, back to us. Few things are worse than watching a son with a broken heart when a parent is without remedy. This I know, but Aaron escaped this knowledge. He dodged burying a child of his own. Will never confront old age and debilitation. Forever young.

            I just miss him. So very, very much.

            That last time, my sister held him close and didn’t want to let him go. I felt certain he’d return.

            Lisa used to call Aaron’s smile a Tom Cruise smile. She was right. Only his was better.

            I couldn’t imagine he wouldn’t return. In a way, I still have a hard time believing he’s gone from here. The enormity, death’s magnitude, is well above our abilities to process all at once. Maybe we’re not supposed to so much. Like a lobster, maybe we grow accustomed to the slow boil. Acclimated to the pain.