We Love the Things We Love for What They Are

The lip of the steel beam glistened in the moonlight, and her toes barely gained purchase.

She was breathing heavily, glancing at the empty expanse below, and then back to the approaching headlights in the distance. The fog made everything slippery. Her aching right arm was bent around the bridge railing.

Her left arm held the crying baby.

Beyond the diffused glow of the headlights, she discerned the outline of the vehicle, as it slowly came to rest. Squinting, she saw the emergency light bar, and then the vehicle’s spotlight, which suddenly activated, blinding her.

She looked away and cursed.

This was meant to be a private thing. Her final, defiant act. To show everyone that she was serious.

And now some cop was going to mess it all up.

Sergeant Timothy Swanson was a bear of a man, and his colleagues nicknamed him “Big Tim.” But beneath his stout frame beat a tender, gentle heart.

He lost his dear wife, Ann, four years ago.

The drunk driver who slammed into Ann’s car was uninjured in the crash. It often went that way, Tim thought. Drunks walk away unscathed, leaving behind carnage, destruction, and stolen dreams.

Ann was his high school sweetheart, and they married young, despite family members telling them to wait. “Wait for what?” Tim used to say. The lines of a Robert Frost poem he memorized in high school English class always buoyed him:

We love the things we love for what they are.

And Tim knew to the core of his being that Ann was the love of his life.

They were married for 25 happy years until an inebriated, angry young man ignored the bartender’s offer to call a cab. Witnesses said the Dodge truck ran a red light, and the violent collision turned Ann’s little Mazda into a contorted heap of smoking wreckage.

Even now, less than a year from retirement, and four years since that devastating night, Tim felt a familiar ache in the pit of his stomach. Losing a loved one is hard, but losing the love of your life in a violent accident is nearly unbearable.

At least the work kept him occupied.

Particularly the nightshifts, where the most drunk drivers could be found. Tim became an expert at spotting irregular driving and was known throughout the police department as the king of DUI arrests. And everyone knew where his motivation came from.

But on this night shift, in the chill and fog, the dispatcher’s call was not a drunk driver but a suicidal woman on a bridge.

And the incident would forever change his life.

Tim grabbed his MagLite, radioed dispatch that he arrived on scene, and slowly approached the edge of the bridge.

He noticed an old compact car, with its front and rear doors left open, parked just prior to the bridge. At the entrance to the bridge, he saw a pair of shoes and an upturned purse laying on the ground, its contents scattered about.

High above, in the misting fog, bridge lights cast a diffused luminescence. It was just enough light to make out a figure clinging to the outside railing.

And that’s when he heard the cries of the baby.

He could see the woman now, barefoot, clinging to the outside rail, with her other arm clutching a frayed, bundled-up blanket. The blanket held little movements and the cries of a baby.

“Stay away from me?” the distraught woman yelled.

“No problem. Is it okay if I stand here, just to talk?” Tim said.

“It isn’t supposed to happen this way. You’re ruining everything! Damnit! Nothing ever goes right! I can’t even get this right!” The woman’s eyes were fierce, her voice sharp, and her movements jerky and trembling.

It scared Tim.

The thin metal edge she was standing on, and the cold railing that she clung to, were both slippery with moisture. Tim radioed for a cover unit and ambulance, advising that they stage thirty feet back from his location. He didn’t want to startle the woman.

“May I ask what your name is?” Tim said.

“No, you may not! This isn’t your business. Why are you even here?” The woman was staring at Tim now.

“Someone called. I think they heard you scream,” Tim said.

The woman cursed several times. Her left foot slipped, and she leaned into the rail to steady herself.

“I don’t want you here. I just want to get this right. I just want to not screw this up. For once in my life!” Her voice trailed off.

“My name’s Tim. I don’t want to upset you. I just want to help, if I can.”

“It’s too late for that, Tim. When Joey was beating me up, where were you? When my baby girl was in foster care, where were you? Hey, maybe you were the pig that locked me up over my addiction. Was that you, Tim?” Her voice was sarcastic. Angry. Desperate.

Tim tried to remember his professional training. The course he took in hostage negotiation school. What did the instructor say? Oh yeah, ventilation. Keep them ventilating. It was a fancy term for talking.

“Sounds like you’ve been through a lot. How old is your baby girl?”

“She’s one. And you know what, Tim? She and I don’t need your help. Because you don’t know the first thing about hardship.”

“Well, I don’t know about your hardships, you’re right. But I lost my wife four years ago. Car accident. So I know hardship. I know loss. It’s terrible.”

The woman stared at Tim. Her demeanor changed slightly. She looked down, and then back at Tim.

“Okay, then you know how pointless it all is. I tried, I really tried. But everyone is gone now. My parents, even my little brother. There’s nothing left, and I don’t want my baby girl to face this crappy world.”

“Yeah, it does feel pointless sometimes. I hear you,” Tim said, as he felt his phone buzz in his shirt pocket. He slipped it out and glanced. It was a text from his Lieutenant, stating “I just arrived on scene, about forty feet back by the trees. Good job, keep her talking.”

“Oh, I’m sorry, Tim, am I boring you? Gotta check your Instagram?” The woman’s voice was biting and sarcastic.

“I’m sorry, it was my boss. He’s not far away, and he said he’s here to help, too, if he can.”

“Well, tell him to screw off. I’m sure your boss doesn’t have any redeeming qualities. I haven’t met any cops who do.”

“Well, I like to think I have a few,” Tim said.

The woman switched position, transitioning the baby to her other arm and turning to face Tim.

“Oh yeah, just what redeeming quality do you have, Tim?”

“My bald spot,” Tim said.

This she didn’t expect to hear, but then Tim just sort of blurted it out. It was the first thing that came to mind, and kind of surprised him, too. He wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw a brief smirk on the woman’s face.

“What the hell do you mean, your bald spot? Are you kidding me?”

“Well,” Tim said, “my bald spot keeps me humble. I’m a CrossFit addict, and I work out regularly. I also like English literature. The guys at work say I’m Mr. Perfect, but I know I’m not. And my bald spot reminds me to keep my ego in check.”

The woman stared at Tim for a long time.

Then she looked down at the dark void below, and back at Tim.

“Just my luck. I’m trying to wrap things up, and along comes Mr. Nice Cop with a bald spot. See what I mean? The world is just a big load of random crap.”

“Well, we might live in a broken world, but there are still good people in it. Hidden behind all the pain and suffering, we still have some beauty, laughter, and hope,” Tim said.

“You really believe that crap?”

“Yes, I do. But it took a while to feel that way again after I lost my wife.”

“What was her name?” the woman asked.

“Ann. Her name was Ann.”

And suddenly the woman began crying.

The fog was getting thicker and the temperature was dropping.

The woman continued sobbing, and then she looked at her baby and said, “Did you hear that sweetheart, his wife’s name was Ann.”

Tim felt his phone buzz again, and he risked looking down. “Keep her talking. Try to get her to give us the baby,” the text message from his Lieutenant said.

“There’s a poem I memorized in high school by Robert Frost, called Hyla Brook,” Tim said, in an effort to keep the woman talking.

She wiped her runny nose and red eyes, and then looked quizzically back at Tim.

“What?” she said.

“It’s a poem about a brook close to the poet’s farm. Some frogs bred there. The brook came and went with the seasons. Anyway, what the poem is really about is that everything should be loved for what it is, rather than what it ought to be,” Tim said.

The woman looked at her baby, and then back at Tim. She was listening, which was a good sign.

“Limitations are part of everything, and that shouldn’t stop us from loving to the fullest. Like I loved my Ann. And you love your baby girl. And love should be unconditional. We have to accept the strengths and weaknesses in everything. The good and the bad.” Tim let his words hang in the air.

“Well, my life has been more about bad than good,” the woman said.

“And I’m sorry for that. But look who you’re holding. She’s the good part. She’s everything, isn’t she?” Tim said.

“But the bad ruins what good there is,” she said.

“It may feel that way, but I’m not so sure. In the Robert Frost poem, he talks about this beautiful brook, but then a drought comes along, and it’s all dried up. It’s not very beautiful anymore. Despite the present condition of the brook, Frost declares his unconditional love for the brook. He has the memory of when the brook was beautiful, and that’s enough.” Tim stopped and tried to read the woman’s expression.

“We love the things we love for what they are,” Tim said, adding, “That’s the last line of the poem. Things don’t have to be perfect to love them. Life doesn’t have to be perfect, to love it.”

The woman smiled at Tim.

“I think you’re a good man, Tim. Maybe you can teach my baby girl to love the best of who I was, and to love the world like that poet loved the brook.”

She kissed her baby’s forehead, adjusted the blanket, and then carefully raised the baby over the rail, setting her gently on the safe side.

And then the woman stepped off the bridge, into the dark, empty expanse below.

Not everyone can be saved, and their last moments often haunt even the most stoic of police officers.

In the week that followed, Tim participated in the team debrief and mandatory counseling sessions. His Lieutenant and others called him a hero.

“But she jumped. I lost her,” Tim told them.

“No Tim,” his Lieutenant said. “You saved her baby. She already made up her mind. Don’t you see? She was going to take the baby with her. And you prevented that. You and your poetry, no less!”

In one of Tim’s mandatory counseling sessions, he told the therapist, “It’s weird, before the incident, I always felt this empty, sad, stillness inside of me. A sort of dull, persistent ache.”

“The loss of your wife, Ann?” the therapist asked.

“Yes. But the moment I picked up that baby girl on the bridge, and her tiny hands latched onto my uniform, the stillness and the ache inside me vanished. I mean, instantly. What is that? What does that mean?”

The therapist handed Tim a tissue to wipe his eyes.

“Maybe it’s hope, Tim? Maybe it’s acceptance of your loss? I’m not sure, but time will hopefully tell,” the therapist said.

That night, Tim dreamt of Ann, and she was smiling at him and telling him “It’s okay, darling. You know what you have to do. Do it for both of us.”

The next morning, Tim awoke like a man on a mission.

The adoption process was less complicated than he imagined. The woman on the bridge had no next of kin, and the father of the little girl had died of an overdose the year before.

“We love the things we love for what they are,” Tim kept telling himself throughout the process, knowing that his wife would be proud of him. He knew from the moment that baby girl latched onto him, that he would love her, and give her a life her mother was denied.

Tim was at the station visiting his Lieutenant when the phone call came, notifying him that he could officially come and get the baby girl.

“I’m nervous,” Tim told his Lieutenant.

“Don’t be, Tim,” the Lieutenant said. “You’re going to be an amazing father. Come on, I’ll take you over to the Division of Child and Family Services.”

When they arrived at the County Building, a few patrol officers were already there, waiting for Tim and his Lieutenant. They were holding little pink balloons that said, “It’s a girl.”

“Cute,” Tim said.

Inside, Tim was greeted by two of the Family Service employees, and one was holding the baby girl. She looked like an angel to Tim.

“Would you like to hold your daughter?” the employee asked.

“Yes, I would. Very much,” Tim said.

“Be gentle now, big guy, try not to break her,” Tim’s Lieutenant joked.

When Tim held her in his arms, the baby latched onto his shirt and started cooing contentedly.

“By the way,” the adoption employee said, “We finally confirmed all her records. It took awhile because her mother moved around a bit.”

“Do we know what her name is?” Tim asked as he smiled at the baby.

“Ann,” the adoption employee said. “Her first name is Ann.”

Before you go

I’m John P. Weiss. I write elegant stories and essays about life. To get my latest writing, photography, and artwork, check out The Saturday Letters.

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This post was previously published on Medium.com.

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Photo credit: Louis Droege on Unsplash