Matt Bialer

Time Is, Was, Will Be

TIME IS, WAS, WILL BE It's Sunday, November 5th. Four and a half years to the day after Bialer's wife Lenora died of breast cancer on May 5th-also a Sunday. He wrestles with whether it feels like a long time since she's been gone or if it just feels like a few months. Grief causes time to fluctuate. He used to count how many Sundays had passed since her death, like swimming in an endless ocean, moving farther and farther from the shore. He'd count how many haircuts he's gotten since then. He remembers scrambling together her last Passover meal because it was an important holiday to her, and he was trying to keep it all together, to enjoy the ordinary. Their daughter Izzy is now 21. She was 16 when her mother died. To her, that's a long, long time ago - on the other side of the world. Today is Daylight Saving Time and the longest day of the year. In a few days, Bialer will have dinner at his girlfriend of three and a half years, Mary's, apartment, and celebrate her birthday with Izzy and Mary's daughter, Samantha. He is now living a different life. Sometimes, it feels like time isn't real. Was his 30-plus years with Lenora real? He thought he had stopped counting how many haircuts he'd gotten. But he hasn't stopped. He can't. He feels guilty leaving it all behind, even while enjoying life-this new life. He posts that 41/2 years ago will always be "that day." Is time real? Is it just an artificial construct of the human mind? He's been assigned to buy the cake for Mary's birthday. He stands in an Old-World bakery in his Brooklyn neighborhood, searching for the perfect cake: a yellow sponge cake inside, topped with chocolate frosting. He notices a very old black-and-white photo taped to the wall of the late Mayor Ed Koch buying a cake in this very store. It is behind a clear plastic bag with flour splotches. He realizes that here in the bakery-time is, was, and will be.