Grace

Nothing comes easily. Where do I begin?

Sometimes I wonder what our kids would’ve looked like if Mark and I had had any before he killed himself. They’d have been beautiful, a mix of Filipino and Irish genetics. I wonder if I’d have taken Mark’s last name if we’d had kids, or which last name we’d have given them. He really wanted us to have the same last name. Goodness knows what kind of life those kids would have, same last name or not. Who can say whether or not Mark would have still completed suicide if he’d had children to live for? Or would we all be just barely surviving with his pathological gambling and lying thwarting our every intention to live a great life?

I wonder if my in-laws would still talk to me if their grandchildren, nieces or nephews had also been left behind. Would I still be Tita Maggie to the nieces and nephews I adored in that past life while married to Mark? Would I still be blamed for his suicide, or with children involved, would more people speak poorly about Mark for abandoning his own kids, as I’ve seen happy to so many widowed friends with kids?

I wonder if I would have had my floozy phase and slutted it up for a while if I’d had kids at home. Would they have been taken away from me because I was too unfit to parent during my breakdown? Would more people have been there to help? And if they were, would I have let them? Perhaps instead of going out for a drink, I’d have been scheduling playdates with other parents and their kids. Instead of piggybacking on other people’s holiday traditions, I may have started my own with my kids.

Our kids?

I admire my widowed friends with children; I can only imagine grieving for my own loss while taking care of other humans who are also grieving and are entirely dependent on me. I know that with kids, you just sort of do it. It’s not all about you, so you get things done, but that doesn’t make it easy. On the other hand, and much to my surprise, a fellow widowed friend with children recently told me that she doesn’t know how I have survived WITHOUT children to take care of. Then two of our other widowed friends with kids immediately agreed with her. I was floored because I’d never thought of it from their perspective, and I just can’t seem to shake it these last few weeks.

If you’re reading this, the odds are that you’re not someone with whom I care to have this conversation. Likely, you’d try to platicate me by saying that I’d be a great mom or that I’m still young, having missed the point entirely. There is no current conclusion to this anyways; there’s just this swirl of feelings. Even if I do someday have kids, they will never be Mark’s. He will never be anyone’s dad. I will never know what our mixed babies would’ve looked like, and I’m not sure I’ll ever stop wondering. But man, they’d have been gorgeous.