Memento mori?

Sep 04, 2008 00:20

Been awhile since I posted.

Many years ago, when I was about 22, I worked with a woman who was about 10 years older. I remember very little about her, though she's popped to mind once or twice since I moved back to Chicago. She was always talking about how she and her husband were going/had gone to the city to this or that restaurant, or concert, or whatever, or about their house and dogs (or were they cats? It's been over a decade). She also definitely had opinions about everything, not sparing me.

What I remember most clearly about her is what she said to me when I told her (and my other co-workers) that my brain tumor had come back. She folded her hands under her chin, rolled her eyes, and said in an exasperated tone, "So the next time you start having headaches and getting symptoms, are you going to go to the doctor right away this time?"

I've mentioned that to my amigo Antonio a few times over the years, and his reactions have ranged from "Yeah, she was a jerk" to "Maybe she meant something other than what you thought. There's more than one meaning to that." NO, NO I'M SORRY, THERE IS NOT. There's really only one correct response to that kind of information ("Oh, I'm so sorry; is there anything I can do, etc."), and her response ain't it.

Tonight Antonio told me that she had died.

She had leukemia, and died in her late 40s. I went and found her website, which chronicled her struggles with diagnosis and years of treatment (including some truly shocking photos, in which she looks absolutely unrecognizable), as well as memorials and tributes to her indomitable spirit, her strength, her kindness, etc.

I'm sorry, but I'm going to say it: she was a bitch.

She criticized me for the clothes I wore, the lunches I ate, the music I listened to at my desk. She hated my pet ferret and criticized me for having him. She was a snob, a superficial suburbanite stereotype only interested in things she could spend money on, and she said one of the cruelest things anyone has ever said to me in my life at a time when I was hurting most. Yes, I'm speaking ill of the dead, but I'd have said exactly the same thing about her several hours ago if you'd asked me, when I would have thought I was speaking ill of the alive. Why is it that we're supposed to wrap someone up in this shroud of hypocrisy after they die?

When I die (and I hate euphemisms for death, so don't expect to read any here), the best tribute anyone could give me is to remember me exactly as I was. Sure, it's be great if there are mostly people lining up to say how great and kind I was, etc., how much I touched them and changed their lives for the better...but I don't want to become a ghost. Or worse yet, a saint. I really hope there are at least some people who are there to add, "Yeah, but she could be a real bitch about her mother/job/students at times;" "She used to get on her high horse about her liberal politics;" "She was usually too stubborn to apologize when she needed to;" "She could go on and on about herself sometimes till everyone was bored to tears;" etc. It's that kind of thing that keeps people alive and human in other people's memories. I'd rather be forgotten than remembered as someone I wasn't. Probably both will happen in the long run.

Even her blog sounds like her: there are a few entries about good times with family, charity fundraisers, etc.....but there are even more that gripe and complain about pain, surgeries, detailed medical procedures, the drama of sitting up in bed and taking liquids, and so forth. Nobody wants to read that shit. I'm saying this as someone who's lived it, more times than I care to count (10, if you want to know, including at least 2 that were life-threatening), and who's tried to write about it. I've never written the whole thing down, and I never will. Because it's simply not inspirational to read about me and my catheter bag, my stitches, my petty day-to-day dramas. That's the worst part about any of it: what if you did write down all the details of the worst, most dramatic thing that ever happened to you, and it just wasn't interesting? Or worse, annoying? I've read too many car crash/breakup/surgery/divorce essays from my students to believe that what shows up big on my radar will even register as a blip on anyone else's.

So I'm sorry she's dead, and I'm sorry she suffered--no one should have to go through that, and I would never, ever under any circumstances have said to her what she said to me. But I refuse to remember her as someone she wasn't, to construct a kinder gentler person than the one she actually was. No, I didn't know her well, but I knew a version of her that she put into the world forever, and I'm here to record it for posterity alongside all the other versions.

If nothing else, it'll keep me aware of how many different versions of me I present to everyone I come into contact with, no matter how much or how little.

A little black humor:

http://www.theonion.com/content/node/29585
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/31633
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/33806
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