On the day of our 31st wedding annniversary
Awakening on our 31st wedding anniversary, two days after a joyous Christmas, a wave of depression falls on me.
Instead of seeking out the fetal position -- my normal response -- I agree with Melanie that we could both use this day of celebration.
To encourage me, my wife reveals her anniversary plan, the fruit of many secret Google searches:
I have reserved a hotel for us in Greenville with a jacuzzi suite.
My wife knows how to tempt me.
•
Through years of on-and-off wrestling with depression, I now imagine it best through the metaphor of rip-tide. It’s a force, a suck, pulling you away from the shoreline into a dark gray uniform fog. The harder you fight against such isolation, the power of its surge more greatly exhausts you.
On the morning of our anniversary, I feel both the need to retreat, and step out and celebrate. Caught in this latest wave of depression, I desire to honor Melanie. Without trying to sound like a Hallmark Card, all saccharine and heterosexual, my wife and I share the blessing of a soulmate, a celebration between best friends.
The idea of a jacuzzi in the hotel is mine, I remind her. A couple of weeks earlier, on the drive home from my mom’s funeral, I made a reservation for just such a room, but the jacuzzi failed to power up.
Grieving the terrible loss of our Mom, we return home and days later learn of the suicide of Amy, a good friend and mother of two; on my wife’s birthday, we hear two bullets fire from next door, the neighbor killing our beloved Siberian Husky, Gatsby.
While packing our overnight bags to celebrate 31 years of marriage, my wife and I agree: warm jacuzzi jets in a luxury suite may actually be two tickets to paradise.
On our 31st anniversary, we were desperate for celebration after the loss of my Mom and the killing of our dog.
•
Opening the door to room 131 of the Day’s Inn in Mauldin, South Carolina, located amid vape and pawn stores, the smell of stale cigarette smoke causes us to literally gag. The poor woman at the front desk, a temp covering second shift for the holidays, offers to spray Febreze. After requesting a refund, we leave, my wife driving and me lying face down on the backseat, pillows under my head, seeking relief from the flare of pain radiating from a bulging disk.
Sinking into pain and depression --
I say nothing
all the way home
to the woman I love
on the afternoon of our anniversary.
•
Returning home, when my wife suggests streaming a movie, I begin to weep and then rage.
With tears I remind her of the mental illness driving four of our good friends to suicide in the last three years. I share the brave words of Amy’s husband at her funeral:
The depression was like an unstoppable cancer.
When Melanie reminds me of the severity of Amy’s depression as well as complicating physical issues, I spew out an anger bred in fear.
Can you guarantee this disease won’t grow in the same way for me?
As she lists legitimate reasons for a more hopeful outcome, I stomp toward our bedroom lobbing a series of F Bombs at my wife, the kindest person I know, on the night of our anniversary.
•
When Melanie wraps her arms around my sobbing body, she reminds me (again with such grace):
I am not the enemy.
Together, through experience, we have learned mentally ill people are prone to say and do crazy things, and that grace alone is a dance that heals.
I tell her through tears:
I am sorry for hurting you, the one I love the most.
It’s all I can offer her, but it’s enough.
I am so for you, Rob.
You keep me afloat, Melanie.
•
During summers spent at Pensacola Beach, I learn the best way to deal with a riptide, contrary to reason or instinct, is not to swim into one but across. It’s a longer escape route, gasping for air, extending terror — messy but doable.
Eventually you find calm water and deep joy in being alive.
Close to midnight, Melanie shares a chill pill with me, a true sacrifice of one of her precious ones. The day’s wild wind strengthens through the night, windows howling. At the end of our 31st wedding anniversary, Melanie and I fall into dream, spooning in moonlight, finding refuge again in each other’s arms.