On the Verge
By: Patsy Fergusson
Tags: Short Story, Life Lessons, Mental Health, Parenting, Happiness

On the Verge

How I feel when everything is going right…

Photo by Arjun Kapoor on Unsplash

There’s a line in a Sam Shepherd play that’s stuck in my brain, when a parent is worrying about a missing child, who might be lying on the side of some freeway, “busted open like a road dog.”

I felt like that parent for most of the last 15 years, when I was worrying about my middle child, who battles with mental health and drug use, and was frequently MIA. But now everything has changed. Three and a half months ago, he was released from the hospital, and nothing bad has happened…

“I’m not going to get my hopes up,” his dad said, and that’s understandable. Three months isn’t much time when compared to the 180 months we’ve been living with suppressed dread — afraid to answer every call.

But it’s a long time — a good, long stretch — when compared with other periods of ease in our son’s adulthood.

I’ve heard it said that a mother can only ever be as happy as her unhappiest child, and I’m here to testify — that’s true.

But this is one of those rare moments in my adult lifetime when everything is going right. My oldest child? Happy. Middle child? Housed. Youngest? Getting married in Israel this month! And I’m feeling busted open right now, but not like a road dog — busted open like a pomegranate, with juicy red seeds spilling out all over the floor.

Everything I see makes me want to cry.

That older Asian man making his way carefully down the sidewalk outside the window of our cafe? Heartbreaker. See how he gently places each foot? How his black puffy jacket is keeping him warm — his baseball cap shading his eyes from the sun? How happy he must be to be alive and outside on this gorgeous afternoon in San Francisco!

That two-toned orange and white Volkswagon bus rounding the corner? Tearjerker. How lovingly the driver has maintained that jewel from another era! His devotion to the ’60s shines through the pristine paint job, the bright white upholstery, the black scrunchie holding back his long blonde hair.

The two young women complaining about their overbearing mothers at the next table? Loveliest thing I’ve ever heard! They yearn to fly the nest, but it’s too comfy to leave. How lucky for them! How lucky for all of us that these young women have such mild concerns.

You see what I mean? See what is happening to me? This kind of happiness is awesome in its power.

Living under its sway has opened my heart to my husband. So now when he complains that he doesn’t want to fly to Israel for the wedding and leave the cafe unsupervised for 10 days, I don’t admonish him and tell him to get with the program, attempting to bully him into my point of view. I tell him I’m sorry it stresses him out.

I can actually hear him, which isn’t often the case after cohabitation for 36 years. And it’s not only him. I can hear everyone, see everything, with these new, teary eyes.

This kind of happiness is frightening. Because it could disappear at any moment, and I could go back to living in a cramped, fearful life.

But as for now? Pomegranates are in season. A middle-aged couple laughs together on the corner. An older man in a brown jacket covered with random badges points out the Cable Car Museum with obvious pride. Two young men in shorts with a dog and a frisbee stride down to the water. Pomegranates hang plumply from the Tree of Life, and I’m going to pluck them, and suck down every drop of their red, delicious juice while I can.