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Working with people who live at the edge of functioning society is humbling in many ways. Although some of our Clinic clients were born poor or sick, many once lived seemingly productive, happy lives. Then a tragedy -- a child’s death, a chronic mental or physical illness, a drug problem, a divorce or a job loss -- pushed them further than their ability to cope. It can happen to anyone. I grab the solid metal rail and pull myself up the next to last flight of stairs. With each heavy step, I wonder: Could I be poised on the edge of my own slippery slope? Or am I already in a free fall? Rick and I have a great post-relationship relationship, something Dwight and I never accomplished. I never thought about the stark difference in the two until now. What explains it? Perhaps that Rick and I were older when our marriage fell apart, perhaps that Rick didn’t leave me for another woman, or perhaps that we share a daughter we both love. When Rick told me why he was leaving our marriage, I didn’t argue. He was in love, but not with me, and once I crawled out from under the covers where I’d hidden for a week, Rick and I focused on Ellie, on what was best for Ellie, on how to make the transition work for Ellie. Those first few weeks I felt horrible, tired and nauseated. Who wouldn’t? As it turned out though, I wasn’t heartbroken at all, I was pregnant. At the time, I refused to consider the possibility that I couldn’t handle another child, even without that child’s father in the same town. I love being a mom and I want Ellie to have a brother or sister (I’ve declined to learn the baby’s sex), but now I wonder whether I’ve taken on too much, whether I could be clinging to this unborn child as a substitute for the husband I lost. For the first time in years, strains of Dede’s favorite Leonard Cohen song echo in my mind (as they echoed throughout the house at all hours during Dede’s teen years, the very years I was with Dwight): “Things are going to slide, slide in all directions.”
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