Dupa

A natural born skeptic, I have always been dubious when I heard tales of women craving pickles or ice cream or some other food during their pregnancies. I just did not put much stock into such stories. That is, until Amy was pregnant with Claire.

One night I cut up an entire watermelon for us to enjoy either as a snack or with dinner. I put it in the refrigerator and proceeded to move onto another chore. When I returned to the kitchen about an hour later, I found Amy enjoying the watermelon. I did not think much of it until later that night when I noticed the empty watermelon container in the dishwasher. Amy had eaten an entire watermelon in less than two hours. Not one of these mini watermelons either, but a full sized one.

When I teased her, she denied eating the entire watermelon, but given it was just her and me at the time, it was not difficult to deduce the truth. She also asked me to go to the store and pick up another one. As cravings go, this was a pretty healthy one and it continued for the entire pregnancy.

Several years later when she was pregnant with the twins, her iron levels were low. The doctor recommended Amy eat liver. That was a hard no for Amy, but she substituted liverwurst sandwiches instead. In this case, she craved these sandwiches topped with pickle slices and had them at least twice each day.

In my grief, I find I crave many things about my relationship with Amy. I miss them terribly.

I crave to see her smile and to hear her laugh. I crave to have her next to me on the couch falling asleep while watching a television show. I crave to see her dance anytime the mood struck her. I crave to hear her wisdom when the kids come to me for advice.

I crave to see her cry when she watched a sad movie. It always reminded me to be more empathetic to people’s pain and circumstances and to appreciate our many blessings.

I crave to hear her call me a Dupa, Polish slang for little ass; mostly used affectionately, when I did something stupid or careless. Like my many mishaps with ladders.

I crave so many, many things about Amy.

One of the more enduring is that I crave to rub her arm at night. For some reason, Amy found great comfort in that gesture from me after she was diagnosed with cancer. I never really knew whether it was because it helped her relax, provided a counterbalance to her pain, or whether it made her feel less alone in her illness. She often needed it to help her fall asleep at night.

Her sister, Mary, once tried to relieve me of this duty for an evening only to be promptly fired from arm rubbing duty after only 15 minutes.

Sometimes I would rub her arm for hours as she slept. If I stopped from exhaustion, she would often wake up and ask me to rub her arm again not realizing I had been doing it the past two hours in the darkness.

Now after more than a year and a half, I still reflexively reach out for her arm each night only to find the cold sheet.

I guess I just crave her presence. The way we communicated with a single word, gesture, or look. The way we always seemed to be in sync. It is so lonely without her.

If she were here, I imagine she would smile, brush my cheek with her hand, call me a Dupa, and gently nudge me forward toward my new life.

But I have found that first step to be the hardest.