Dear Cary - Dyan Cannon [125]
During my first conversation with her, I told Lily I was genuinely seeking a spiritual path, but that there might be some obstacles—namely, that the word “God” made me extremely nervous because it had been such a flash point for conflict in my family.
“Can we just use the word ‘love’ instead?” I asked her.
“That’s the best word you could possibly use, because that’s what God is,” she said. “God is Love.” And I knew I’d found my teacher. The idea that the power that ran the universe was something called love made sense to me. I didn’t completely understand it, but I sure was going to explore it further. I spent many hours a day in pursuit of that tiny glimpse I’d had of it. I found myself growing stronger, calmer, and more secure.
It was funny how the people closest to me used such similar words to describe the change they saw come over me. They all talked as if I’d gone somewhere far away, with a stand-in walking through my life and saying my lines for me. “I’m starting to see traces of you again,” Mom told me a few months after I was out of the hospital.
“You’re back!” Dad said. “We’ve missed you so much.”
Addie said, “I can finally breathe again—I’ve been so worried about you for so long.”
“Don’t go away like that again!” Mary said. “We were scared to death you weren’t coming back.”
So was I, my dear friends, I thought.
So I just gave it all up. No more booze—not even wine; no more pills. For a while, I took a toke or two here and there to take the edge off, but eventually I decided I didn’t want to use crutches anymore because I was tired of limping.
As for men . . . suffice it to say they could be just as tempting a form of escapism as anything else, but as months wore on, I found myself making wiser and better choices. I started appreciating them as companions instead of saviors, or teachers, or whatever the need of the moment was.
But I still wondered where my life was going, and I still felt like I was making it up as I went along. I’d turned down a lot of roles and a lot of money, and berated myself for putting Jennifer and myself in such a precarious position. I’d try to live according to my highest sense of right, as Lily had taught me, but here I was with a quarter tank of gas and a couple of bowls of salad to my name. Was it always going to be this hard? I really didn’t know how much longer my strength could hold out. Being a single mom is hard enough, even if you’re financially stable—which I certainly wasn’t.
That night was chilly, and Jennifer and I sat by the fireplace cuddling and warming ourselves. I let out a sigh. It had been a rough few weeks and a particularly trying day. I felt like I was faced with a huge hurdle, and I didn’t know how I was going to get past it. The idea of losing the house gnawed at me. Well, what was the worst that could happen? I had my beautiful daughter and I had my health back.
I ran my fingers through Jennifer’s dark hair and looked into her big brown eyes.
Cary’s eyes. My nose. Cary’s chin. My skin. We were all parts of each other, I thought. Sometimes my marriage to Cary seemed like an illusion, but not very often. Here in my arms was the fact that it had all been real. Cary and I had been married, and that was a fact of my life. Jennifer was the fruit of that union, and she was the continuity.
From the time she was old enough to understand, I told Jennifer, “Your daddy and I have had some problems, but I know how much you love your daddy, and I know how much your daddy loves you. And that’s good and right. Nothing and no one should ever come in between that. Your daddy and I are sorting out our issues, but they’re our issues and