At the Risk of Sounding Crass
About a decade or so ago, my Facebook news feed was filling up with dying cats. It seemed like all the kittens we had found, coaxed, adopted, bought, traded, rescued, tamed into our lives when we had first gotten our own place to live, during or after college, had come to the end of their last life and were dying or needing to be put down. This happened over the course of a year or two, not all at once, but it was noticeable. At some point you realized, sick of the trite phrases that sounded so hollow and meaningless now, you had gotten really creative with how to say "I'm so sorry," especially after you had to take your own cat to the vet and have her put down.
Now it seems like that same cohort of friends has reached another heartbreaking milestone in our lives, but instead of cats we are losing fathers and mothers. This year has been particularly bad, and not just because my own was part of it.
I don't know what else to write about this other than to make this observation. Except I'm tired of it. Sick of it.
All those creative and heartfelt ways I had for sharing sympathy with my fellow cat people are gone. I see another announcement and I choose the heart icon to show my sympathy, my solidarity, to share my strength, my I-know-where-you-are-right-now-and-I'm-with-you-but-I'm-sorry-this-is-all-I-can-manage-because-I'm-that-with-you. You can only get those just-for-you words when I have not been tossed into the storm, six times this year. And really, the more fitting metaphor is earthquake. Like that one in Juneau, Alaska where entire roads are split down the middle, where when you look down you just see shadows. To me, now, everything else are aftershocks, tearing down again that which had just started to look like something useful and whole again, and creating new gashes wholly their own.
A dad.
An aunt.
A nephew.
A chosen mother.
A chosen father.
A mentor.
I attended another funeral Monday. It was like a little reunion. I've learned they all are. Reunions with everyone following up their delighted greeting with, "except for the sad circumstances."
I don't know how loved ones hold wakes with the body present. I barely managed with Dad in a jar. The worst part of the funeral was not seeing the body of my fellow teacher, mentor, leader lying unmoving in her casket. It was seeing the smiling, composed faces of her family, recognizing them for what they were, knowing what they would dissolve into once everyone had left and they had the space to themselves. That's what threatened my own calm the most, that recognition in each other of that burning, abyssal, wrenching, shattering loss. It's what steers me away from those closest to me who have just felt the same loss, who could use my help, my support right then. Instead I jest, I play Words with Friends with them, I select the heart icon to convey everything I can't with words and presence.
I want to say I'm done with this. I want to say I would really like to not have to attend any more of these. But I have read the fairy tales, I know all about the wording of wishes, and I know how things backfire. I also know the age and health of so many beloveds around me. So I will be silent on the matter and just hope that there is a little bit of a respite.