9.13: ...Life Ends for Someone

    "Can you believe it?" Xavier whispered into my ear. "Remy, Felix, Chester are at auntie Delilah's and cousin Anderson's for the whole weekend. My parents are at someone's retirement party." Since there was such a large age gap in between Delilah and Isadora and Christopher, we decided against telling the children to call her grandma and decided on auntie instead. It seemed a bit awkward calling Anderson uncle, since we were calling Delilah auntie, so he was dubbed cousin. 
   "We have the house to ourselves." I replied, glancing up from my painting. In between the three toddlers, Felix was five, Chester was two, and our youngest and only girl Remy was one, and our thriving business we barely got time to ourselves.
   "You know what that means?" He asked, placing his hands on my shoulders, beginning to massage me.
   "Ooh, what?" I knew the answer, but I wanted him to say it. I needed to hear him say it.
   "We can," his voice lowered, becoming huskier, "watch a rated R movie on Netflix. There can be violence or cursing or nudity- there's no one here to overhear it."
   "You had me at Netflix."
   "You know what else we can do?"
   "This?" I replied, turning around, kissing him tenderly. "We've never tried doing it outside." In truth, we hadn't done it since our wedding anniversary, four months ago. "Imagine the scandal."
   "You had me at doing it." 

   "God I love you." I laughed, as we began kissing again.

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   "Oh fuu- fruitcake!" I exclaimed, gripping my stomach.
   "Phoebe?" I heard Xavier yell. "Are you in labor?" I wanted to laugh, but the contractions were too painful; this was our third child, he was very familiar with the signs of labor. Seconds passed, then he was by my side, helping me waddle to the car, to the hospital.
   After a very drugged up, four and a half hour labor, Hadley made her debut. Our fourth bundle of joy; our first unplanned one. To quote what Isadora told us when we announced my pregnancy: "Gosh, someone's a fertile Myrtle. Ya leave 'em alone for a weekend and suddenly there's gonna be a baby." When Xavier and I began sputtering, trying to think of a defense, she simply rolled her eyes and replied: "I can count. You said you were three months along, three months ago Christopher and I were out of town the children were at their auntie's." She may be a seventy-eight year old, but she had lovable audacity.

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   "Can you believe that we have four children?" I asked Xavier.
   "Yes... No..." I mean, when there's someone crying at two am, I can, but other times, it feels peculiar. Like now, when we're alone together, it's hard to believe. I feel like I should pinch myself, I'm so grateful. I have a gorgeous wife, four healthy children, we're a bit more than just financially stable, I'm forty-five and haven't started graying... I love you, Pho."
   "I love you, too." 
   "Do you think they'll like it?" He turned to look at the nursery we'd finished setting up for a young couple who were expecting twins.
   "I hope so. I wish I could tell them everything we learned."
   "So do I, unfortunately, there are some things as a parent you just have to learn as you go."
   "Potty training tips." I replied. Hadley was only three months old, so we were still in the sleep, scream, eat, defecate, urinate all day stage, but Remy, who was fifteen months, had refused to wear her diaper anymore, therefore we were potty training her; before we knew it, we'd be potty training Hadley, as well. "Are we done?"
   "Potty training? Sadly, no."
   "I mean having children." I expected him to be shocked at my suggestion, neither one of us ever pictured having a large family, yet now that we did, we both loved it and couldn't imagine not.
   "I don't know. Do you want another child?"
   "I'm unsure. I love being a mother, I wouldn't want to have more than five children, though, so if we did have another, he or she would be our last; the tubes would be tied, afterwards. Also, I don't want to push my luck. What if the fifth baby's lungs don't develop properly or she or he has autism or they're blind, deaf, or both? Or I miscarriage? Or they end up depressed and hating me cause they're the youngest? Or I have twins or triplets or quads and I hate myself because I said I only wanted one more?"
   "You're not even pregnant, yet you're worrying about possible complications. Honey, relax."
   "What about you?"
   "I could see myself as being daddy to five." He simply said, shrugging.
   "Could we talk to an OB/GYN? Or a fertility specialist or someone? Just to know what the risks were if I were to become pregnant?"
   "Yes." He said, taking my hands, kissing my forehead.

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   "Eighty years." 

   "Xavier, what can I say?" I felt helpless. I'd lost my parents at such a young age, but I had no idea what to say to someone who had a much stronger emotional bond to their father. "Please, I want you to be okay."

   "I'll make it through, Pho."

   "I know you will. You're strong."

   "Do you know what mom told me?"

   "No." I shook my head. 

   "She wants to move into a nursing home. She said that she's getting older, that she doesn't want to saddle us with the responsibility of caring for her, especially since we have five children under the age of ten."

   "What did you say?"

   "Nothing. She's headstrong, she'll do what she wishes, I cannot change her mind."

   "I'm sorry." I hugged him, wish the hug would take away the grief. His father had been diagnosed with a very rare type of cancer a few weeks ago, the oncologist stated that he had less than a year left, none of us knew that in reality he had less than a month. "Time will heal the wounds. It might take weeks, months, but one day you'll wake up, you'll hug the children, you'll realize it'll be okay."

   "I don't want to go throuh that. I don't want to waste time mourning. I want to go home, hug the children now."

   "Xavier... It was rare, you won't-"

   "I'm not worried about myself. I know that there's a very, very, very slim chance of me getting it, since it isn't genetic. I just feel like he'd want me to not wallow in pain, he'd want me to realize that this meant I shouldn't take things for granted, take time for granted."

   "If you think that's best."

   "I do."

   "I love you. Hadley, Ryelynn, Remy, Felix, Chester, they love you. Isadora loves you. Delilah and Anderson love you. He does, too; we all do."

   In times of tragedy, there are always two main responses: emotionally breakdown or stay strong. You don't necessarily decide how you respond, however you do decide who surrounds you during difficult times and that almost matters more than your response. If you have people loving you, people supporting you, you can make it through almost anything- no, anything. You can make it through anything if you have the right type of people surrounding you; it took me a long time to realize it, it can be a difficult lesson to learn, but the lesson's true.