“She’ll be more than fine, she’ll be fierce.” ― Nicola Noble

A friend asked me recently how I was doing, if I was ok. This is one of those questions where I pause because the answer isn’t a simple one. I’m still here, I usually say, I am moving forward day by day. The real answer, the one that I don’t say to anyone, is I’m not ok, not by a long shot.

I went recently to visit friends in DC. I took in some museums, saw a hockey game, acted the tourist in a city I used to live. A good friend posted a picture of us after a night out, the caption read, “Laughter with friends makes the world a bit brighter”. In the picture, I’m laughing and look so carefree, so without worry and sorrow. Carefree isn’t something I associate with myself these days. I don’t know that person anymore, a stranger stares back at me.

We moved to Charleston from DC. This was a move I championed, and if I’m honest, one I alone wanted. DC had become too hectic, too removed, too repetitive for me. I was drawn to the nostalgia of my childhood, where locked doors didn’t exist, you could ride your bike without worry and the nice lady next door had an endless supply of cookies. I longed for time together as a family and a safe place for my kids to grow up, a place where we could all be more carefree. Fate is fickle they say and the hand dealt is not the one you might choose. The irony is not lost on me.

I think often about the decision to move here. If I hadn’t pushed us into moving, exerting my will over those around me, would Dermot still be alive? Charleston has become a permanent reminder of what is forever lost. The fantasy I so desperately wanted for my family and myself is now an endless nightmare of remorse.

In psychology, this is what they call a Stuck Point, those what-ifs your brain latches onto and convinces you are truths. My life has become an endless series of Stuck Points, the what-ifs that wake me in the middle of the night.

What if I had asked Dermot if he had a motorcycle? The signs were there, I certainly knew he wanted one. He talked about it endlessly, sent us pictures of bikes, including the one he did eventually buy. There was the mysterious fall from the back of a “friends bike” and his subsequent trip to the ER just a few weeks before. I had made a mental note to call bullshit on that story but never did. There was the money he owed his dad and asked me to square because he had spent it on something unspecified. This was the money, of course, that paid for the motorcycle.

When I’m awake at night wondering why I didn’t ask those questions, I always come to the same conclusion. I didn’t because I already knew the answer, I knew because I would have done exactly the same thing. The real question, the one I ponder in the middle of the night, is what if Dermot hadn’t been so much like me? My own stubborn, forceful nature, the one that convinced my family to pick up and move to a different city for me, was what I shared with my son. It has become my ultimate Stuck Point.

For now, when someone asks am I doing ok, I’ll answer I am. Dermot would have wanted that after all and he would have been the first to agree laughter and friends do in fact make the world brighter.