(no subject)
06/08/2021
Hey grandpa. I’m so sorry that I let you down. I should have seen that you couldn’t make it any longer and gotten more help. I hope you know that you were the most important person in my life and that I would have done anything you asked to keep you here. I failed you, but you failed me a little bit too. We were a team and you left and you didn’t invite me. I don’t know how to continue without you, but somehow I will. You taught me to always keep going, and I’m so grateful for everything you gave me and for every minute we spent together, even when it was difficult. I hope there is something after and that you are happy. I love you, so much and forever.
11/20/21
If you can see me, I know it’s ugly. I know it’s not what you would want. None of this is what I want. I promise I’ll get better though. I might not make you proud but I’ll try not to humiliate you forever. I know you’ll forgive me. I hope that if you can see me you can also see the pain. You can see how much will it has taken not to follow you, that the pain you felt is not so unlike the pain I have felt except that with assistance I was able to tolerate mine. For now. So if tolerating it paints an embarrassing picture of me, so be it. I can rehab my reputation at a later date. Life is long, don’t you know? Or is it impossibly short? You’ll have to let me know.
08/03/2021
He immediately believed that he was going to die, and not all that long afterwards he made sure of it. He was wrong, and he should not have done that. I wish to tell him that, to tell him that yes, this time I AM angry. That I love him too, that I was never angry before, and that I only loved him. That I’m sorry I failed him, but that I also don’t deserve to be left without an explanation. I deserved a note. He is responsible for his choice, he was competent, lucid, in pain but in control. I deserved a word of goodbye though. I deserved one last scrawled piece of paper saying “I can’t do this anymore,” or “the pain was too much,” or “farewell, and try to understand,” or even-optimistically-“I’m so sorry, I just can’t see the light right now and I’m in pain and I’ve got to go, but we really did try our best, didn’t we?” Or just “this isn’t your fault, I hid it from you intentionally.”
He was my grandfather, my Gampy. We were friends. I knew him in ways that few did, if anyone. He accepted me in ways that few do, if anyone.
I don’t find it entirely unbelievable that he made that decision, he spoke of how “it all now seemed so pointless.” I am in disbelief that he left no farewell. It’s almost as if he was embarrassed, because that act is “a fuck to everyone who cares about you.” Perhaps in that moment he felt that no one else cared about him, but he knew that I did. So what do you say when the real message is “fuck you.” Not the one he meant to send, I’m sure he didn’t, I’m sure there was no message. There was pain and fear and a decision that is so easy to make that you hardly have to consider it all.
My first thought and one of the first things I said in the aftermath was “we were a team and my partner took off…and he didn’t even invite me.” Sure, in that moment I wanted to go the same direction but that wasn’t really what I meant. I meant that he didn’t hold up his end of the unspoken agreement that we had. That in order to help, I have to know. I thought I knew, but I didn’t. He didn’t express his mental pain, he said only “I feel terrible.” He didn’t have to invite me to where he was going, he needed to invite me to his anguish, so that this didn’t happen at all. He told me everything, except this. Everything. And then he left me nothing afterwards, so I was not invited to understand his anguish even after he turned his back. Shot away, said Fuck You and Nothing Else. He was a resilient man, but not an insensitive one, and I find it hard to believe that he didn’t leave anything to better understand. He wanted to understand everything and everyone. He captioned every photograph, wrote in every margin, took notes on others’ behavior. He would have left a note, perhaps short, but significant. Why was there no note?
It is all, in fact , pointless, like I responded when he said it had grown to feel that way. We were driving down the canyon on the way to one of his treatments. It was a Better Than Average Day and he could talk and he wasn’t too tired. He said I should have children, that a wife and children gave it all meaning for a long time. I told him that I wouldn’t have children to give my own life meaning. Maybe it was the wrong thing to say. Maybe I was too honest, not unkind, but straightforward. I take some comfort in viewing existence as a humiliating and boring experience that is full of suffering. Maybe I should have lied, said we were trying for a baby or even that I was pregnant. Maybe I should have been brighter, treated him less like an equal and more like a child. I could never lie to children though, and to view him as anything but an equal or superior disgusts me. There are people that I like or love or respect. People who are easy company. Then there was Carl Francis Anderson. I love him, I respect him, and he was easy company, even when things were really really hard. We have the same initials, and he gave me so much of myself. My identity is intimately tied to his existence, and now, his non-existence. I don’t know anything about myself except the parts he gave me and all the ways his departure is eroding the little that is left. I know he wouldn’t want these tears and he would say “why are you crying, I’m not suffering anymore” like he did when grandma went. He spent eighty six years doing what he Should Do regardless of adversity. It took *eighty six* years for him to throw his hands up, and he would regret that too if it were possible. He would agree that he shouldn’t have, and say what a stupid idea it was, maybe even laugh a little. Some things can’t be learning exercises though. Some things are just The End. I will do my very best and avoid The End, for at least eighty six years if I am so able. The tears can’t be avoided though. I suppose it’s a good thing he’s not here to see them, but it’s still The Worst Thing That Has Ever Happened. Nothing will make it better or different. It will not transform. I will live in it forever, even if I get better at it. It will be Present until I am no longer here. I wish he knew. I wish he were here and I wish he knew. The way he changed me forever. My dad and my sister too, but the way he changed me is different and he would feel differently about it. He’s not here though, he never will be again, and nothing will ever be the same.
08/20/2021
I was half asleep dreaming intensely for the last several hours. I saw my grandpa and he had cancer but was okay. He was not emaciated, he was plump. And he hugged me for a long time and said he hoped he would see me soon. I said of course, that he would see me every day. And he beamed at me grinning and then walked away. It was nice but of course now I’m crying.
10/28/21
Thank you. For everything
11/20/2021
You’d understand. You wouldn’t approve but you would understand. And you would find it all very funny, a twinkle in your eye even as you wag your finger. You always loved a bit of fun, even if it was questionable fun. Especially if it was someone else and you could just observe. I make a lot of mistakes, but very human ones I think. I’m more indulgent than you were. Sorry for that, it’s a flaw of mine. I’ll pay for a respite. In money or tears or whatever else. I thought I was getting better but I’m having a hard time. Pardon me grandpa but my grandpa killed himself in June and I’m not handling it well. That was mean, but I think you can take a joke at our expenses. I certainly cannot. You were so much better than I am. I hope that was age and experience, because then there is hope. I can be better. Like you. I love you and I miss you. Not a day without you in here.
12/21
They all could have cared for you, but I was the only who wanted to. Actually and truly wanted to. I don’t know how to forgive them. Especially when I’m not allowed to get mad in the first place.
12/21
It was the greatest honor of my life to be with you for those months. Barring everything else, it was the greatest honor. Almost six months. I miss you. Sometimes I’m even a little mad at you. But I never lose sight of the absolute gift I received. Grandma too. I got to be there. I got to love you until the end. The good fortune of being able to show up at the right time, at the right place. Be able to settle any unrest inside myself as well as anyone can. Love you, be with you, attend to you. It’s a real fucking shame it had to end that way, but I was the luckiest person in the world for awhile. We usually get less than what the two of us had. It was special and it was fulfilling, if only for a short, stressful, painful time. It transcends language, the largest lexicon in the world is available to me but I still can’t quite name it. It is important though. Big important meaning and value. I wonder if you understood how goddamn blessed I felt to get to serve you. I wonder if it would have made a difference. I think you knew, and I don’t think it would have made a difference. I’ll never know quite what to believe though. Because you didn’t leave a note. So I’ll get to wonder for the rest of my life and you are insane if you think I won’t. But I can drive myself mad looking for answers and still know all along that it was the greatest honor of my life to be there with you. I just wish I had lived up to that honor in a way that allows me to live with myself.
07/25/21
“You have been so sympathetic through all of this.”
“It’s nothing. It’s what I think I would want if I were in your situation.”
“I would hope that I would do the same.”
“I apologize for not being more loveable, it’s just not how I was raised.” (He meant affectionate)
“You are affectionate, and anyways I’m not very affectionate either, especially physically.”
“I don’t think so.”
We were both affectionate, and we were both loveable. We just weren’t always understood by everyone. He didn’t need to thank me, but he did every day anyways, and I didn’t need to kiss his head every time I said goodbye but I did anyways. Every time except the last time. I was in a rush, and in the end, so was he. But I still said “I love you” and he said “I love you too” and “thank you…for everything,” and I said “of course, it’s nothing.” Just like every day. But it wasn’t every day and I never saw him again. Maybe if I had just kissed his forehead I would have seen him again.
08/22/21
Things can usually be mended, and they will be similar but always changed. More beautiful, stronger…weaker, uglier. Stronger, uglier. Weaker, more beautiful. What about us though? Can I pin patches on my torn sides? Can I stitch closed the burn holes in my brain? Tight and bunched weird but secure? It isn’t up to me, we don’t even know how our brains organize and recall information in the most important ways. It is so unreliable and mysterious. I can use it to control my nervous system, it decides to mend the couch and the blanket, to refine my motor control to make careful stitches. I’m not really at the wheel however. None of us are. Will it decide to mend itself? How? How soon? What will my patches look like? How will they feel in my body? Will I be similar? Uglier? Weaker? I think so, but my brain is an unreliable source and cannot be trusted. Not with this, not with anything. This time could be different, I could be better. I don’t dare to hope, my fortunes always come out in reverse, or mixed up like I didn’t ask a genie in *just* the right way. Twisted, cruel, technically accurate but not at all what I intended. So I wait.
07/23/21
When you say something bad about him, it feels like you are saying something bad about me. For loving him completely as he was. I felt I was his lone defender and not even in death will I cease my protection of him, his life, and the best parts of him. Even if they were reserved for me and not others. I could never do enough to repay him for his existence. It’s a cliche but also irrefutable that he is part of me. He shaped me in ways that are so fundamental that they can not be separated from either he or I, and they are the only parts of me that I like. I am very good at hating myself, but I love him, and I love the parts of myself that are him, and I will stand by that. To whatever end.
07/22/21
Learned helplessness, learned fear, never permitted anger. I am a placeholder for a person, but possess few of the traits of one. People get angry, drive irrational fear extinct, overcome failure. I’m just prey. Useful prey. That looks and talks and walks like a person. That says yes even when they do not want to and will carry what you need even when they do not want to. I am prey with a strong back and positive presentation. So well disguised that others don’t know that they are preying on me, because I smile and say I’d be happy to and that it’s nothing and no worries. The ones that have known were predators, but mostly it’s just people. I invited them, I looked pleased, I made it easy. I don’t want to be prey anymore, but I want to be useful, I want to be lovable, and I don’t know how to feel useful and lovable without being prey. Or maybe I’m just ungrateful and a narcissist, and I need a reality check because I’m not that fucking special just because I’m in pain. And I’m responsible for most of everything in my life whether I have freewill or not. Including the pain, and the helplessness and the fear. I should get over it. I should learn how to get over it. To grow up. To be something else. It’s on me. I have the teeth and the voice and the tools to fight, maybe I’m just like my mother. Maybe I just want to be a victim, the only difference is that I don’t say it out loud. I only martyr myself in my head.
07/26/2021
He tried to be a family with me. I brought him a rotisserie chicken because it went down easier when the pain was less but still too much. I made mashed potatoes and gravy. When I arrived he had set the table and made asparagus. My father joined because I invited him but he was guest at our meal. Our family meal. The two of us. Against his body, the world, and the rejection. A lost young woman and old ill man. An odd pairing, our little family. I was touched that he prepared, I usually just brought what I thought he might be able to eat and then watched and tried to calculate if he was getting enough calories. This time he made clear, we were together, we are a family and a team, and this is our table. Our meal. Our frozen in time moment to have normalcy together, come what may. I spent so much time caring about him alone, and he made sure on that day that I knew he wanted to take care of me too. A moment of a normal quiet lunch, like we weren’t fighting for our lives in different way. Like it wasn’t the end of the world. Almost dystopian in its mundanity. His little reminder that he didn’t just need my support, he wanted his family to feel loved and I was his family.
07/27/21
We planned for the future. Did he believe sometimes, or did he pretend so that I would believe for him? Was there shared hope? Or was I more alone than I thought? I don’t know what reality is or was, or could have been. Inevitable or an aberration. I can’t trust myself, my judgement, or the reassurances of others. Nothing makes sense.
08/04/2021
He immediately believed that he was going to die, and not all that long afterwards he made sure of it. He was wrong, and he should not have done that. I wish to tell him that, to tell him that yes, this time I AM angry. That I love him too, that I was never angry before, and that I only loved him. That I’m sorry I failed him, but that I also don’t deserve to be left without an explanation. I deserved a note. He is responsible for his choice, he was competent, lucid, in pain but in control. I deserved a word of goodbye though. I deserved one last scrawled piece of paper saying “I can’t do this anymore,” or “the pain was too much,” or “farewell, and try to understand,” or even-optimistically-“I’m so sorry, I just can’t see the light right now and I’m in pain and I’ve got to go, but we really did try our best, didn’t we?” Or just “this isn’t your fault, I hid it from you intentionally.”
He was my grandfather, my Gampy. We were friends. I knew him in ways that few did, if anyone. He accepted me in ways that few do, if anyone.
I don’t find it entirely unbelievable that he made that decision, he spoke of how “it all now seemed so pointless.” I am in disbelief that he left no farewell. It’s almost as if he was embarrassed, because that act is “a fuck to everyone who cares about you.” Perhaps in that moment he felt that no one else cared about him, but he knew that I did. So what do you say when the real message is “fuck you.” Not the one he meant to send, I’m sure he didn’t, I’m sure there was no message. There was pain and fear and a decision that is so easy to make that you hardly have to consider it all.
My first thought and one of the first things I said in the aftermath was “we were a team and my partner took off…and he didn’t even invite me.” Sure, in that moment I wanted to go the same direction but that wasn’t really what I meant. I meant that he didn’t hold up his end of the unspoken agreement that we had. That in order to help, I have to know. I thought I knew, but I didn’t. He didn’t express his mental pain, he said only “I feel terrible.” He didn’t have to invite me to where he was going, he needed to invite me to his anguish, so that this didn’t happen at all. He told me everything, except this. Everything. And then he left me nothing afterwards, so I was not invited to understand his anguish even after he turned his back. Shot away, said Fuck You and Nothing Else. He was a resilient man, but not an insensitive one, and I find it hard to believe that he didn’t leave anything to better understand. He wanted to understand everything and everyone. He captioned every photograph, wrote in every margin, took notes on others’ behavior. He would have left a note, perhaps short, but significant. Why was there no note?
It is all, in fact , pointless, like I responded when he said it had grown to feel that way. We were driving down the canyon on the way to one of his treatments. It was a Better Than Average Day and he could talk and he wasn’t too tired. He said I should have children, that a wife and children gave it all meaning for a long time. I told him that I wouldn’t have children to give my own life meaning. Maybe it was the wrong thing to say. Maybe I was too honest, not unkind, but straightforward. I take some comfort in viewing existence as a humiliating and boring experience that is full of suffering. Maybe I should have lied, said we were trying for a baby or even that I was pregnant. Maybe I should have been brighter, treated him less like an equal and more like a child. I could never lie to children though, and to view him as anything but an equal or superior disgusts me. There are people that I like or love or respect. People who are easy company. Then there was Carl Francis Anderson. I love him, I respect him, and he was easy company, even when things were really really hard. We have the same initials, and he gave me so much of myself. My identity is intimately tied to his existence, and now, his non-existence. I don’t know anything about myself except the parts he gave me and all the ways his departure is eroding the little that is left. I know he wouldn’t want these tears and he would say “why are you crying, I’m not suffering anymore” like he did when grandma went. He spent eighty six years doing what he Should Do regardless of adversity. It took *eighty six* years for him to throw his hands up, and he would regret that too if it were possible. He would agree that he shouldn’t have, and say what a stupid idea it was, maybe even laugh a little. Some things can’t be learning exercises though. Some things are just The End. I will do my very best and avoid The End, for at least eighty six years if I am so able. The tears can’t be avoided though. I suppose it’s a good thing he’s not here to see them, but it’s still The Worst Thing That Has Ever Happened. Nothing will make it better or different. It will not transform. I will live in it forever, even if I get better at it. It will be Present until I am no longer here. I wish he knew. I wish he were here and I wish he knew. The way he changed me forever. My dad and my sister too, but the way he changed me is different and he would feel differently about it. He’s not here though, he never will be again, and nothing will ever be the same.
12/21
I wonder what the relationship is between grief and procreation. I never wanted children until this year and now I want one desperately. Unlikely I could ever talk myself into actually doing such a thing but I look for chinks in my own armor, play devil’s advocate in my own internal monologue. Because my family is getting smaller, and I want to see you. I want to see you in someone else’s face. I want family that looks and feels like family. And because you wanted me to. You wanted so desperately to know that there would be happy news ahead, that we would be settled and have happy children and purpose. I don’t owe you that but I want to see you and I want to understand you. You could be born in small snippets of genetics, and you valued the experience of parenting. It’s persuasive. Persuasive enough to overturn a stance that is fundamentally flawless? Probably not. But I’ve been known to do things I consider bad. Repeatedly even. I guess I’ll either run out the clock or compromise my own ethics. Both are fine. Everything is relative anyways. I can justify virtually any decision, it doesn’t really matter, except that I know what I agree with and what I don’t. I’ve always been a real obstacle to my own success.