(no subject)
“It will never be okay,” a friend who lost her mom in her teens said to me a couple years ago. “It will never be okay that our mothers are dead.”
At the time she said this to me she wasn’t yet really my friend. We’d chatted passingly at parties, but this was the first time we were alone together. She was fiftysomething and I was forty. Our moms had been dead for ages. We were both writers with kids of our own now. We had good relationships and fulfilling careers. And yet the unadorned truth of what she’d said-it will never be okay-entirely unzipped me.
It will never be okay, and yet there we were, the two of us more than okay, both of us happier and luckier than anyone has a right to be. You could describe either one of us as “joy on wheels,” though there isn’t one good thing that has happened to either of us that we haven’t experienced through the lens of our grief. I’m not talking about weeping and wailing every day (though sometimes we both did that). I’m talking about what goes on inside, the words unspoken, the shaky quake at the body’s core. There was no mother at our college graduations. There was no mother at our weddings. There was no mother when we sold our first books. There was no mother when our children were born. There was no mother, ever, at any turn for either one of us in our entire adult lives and there never will be.
The Black Arc of It.
Substitute 'mother' for 'father' here and you have me.
Tomorrow is three years since we lost my dad. I mean lost in two senses there: Lost in that he passed away, he is no longer with us, and all those other euphemisms we use when we mean dead. I also mean lost in the sense that we did 'lose' him - he was missing for 24 hours before his body was found. We knew he hadn't got to his appointment, we knew they'd found his car, we knew they'd found his 'suicide' note - but we didn't know.
My mum asked me, around 9.30 that night, where I thought he was. I told her "bottom of the canal". She nodded and agreed.
He was in the river, but it's the same difference down there, the two merge not far beyond where they found him.
So tomorrow is the anniversary of his going missing and Sunday is the official death date, the one on the death certificate and on his gravestone, but it's not true, tomorrow is the day we lost him. The 10th is just the day we had it confirmed.
Three years on, I'm not okay with his death. I'm not okay that he did it, I'm not okay that he left us, I'm not okay with the mismanagement of his illness, I'm not okay with losing him when I did, I'm not okay that he isn't here anymore, I'm not okay with the stigma that surrounds suicide, I'm not okay with never hearing his voice again, I'm not okay with other people telling me that he would 'be so proud of me' when I wish he had told me that a bit more, I'm not okay, I'm not okay, I'm not okay.
At the time she said this to me she wasn’t yet really my friend. We’d chatted passingly at parties, but this was the first time we were alone together. She was fiftysomething and I was forty. Our moms had been dead for ages. We were both writers with kids of our own now. We had good relationships and fulfilling careers. And yet the unadorned truth of what she’d said-it will never be okay-entirely unzipped me.
It will never be okay, and yet there we were, the two of us more than okay, both of us happier and luckier than anyone has a right to be. You could describe either one of us as “joy on wheels,” though there isn’t one good thing that has happened to either of us that we haven’t experienced through the lens of our grief. I’m not talking about weeping and wailing every day (though sometimes we both did that). I’m talking about what goes on inside, the words unspoken, the shaky quake at the body’s core. There was no mother at our college graduations. There was no mother at our weddings. There was no mother when we sold our first books. There was no mother when our children were born. There was no mother, ever, at any turn for either one of us in our entire adult lives and there never will be.
The Black Arc of It.
Substitute 'mother' for 'father' here and you have me.
Tomorrow is three years since we lost my dad. I mean lost in two senses there: Lost in that he passed away, he is no longer with us, and all those other euphemisms we use when we mean dead. I also mean lost in the sense that we did 'lose' him - he was missing for 24 hours before his body was found. We knew he hadn't got to his appointment, we knew they'd found his car, we knew they'd found his 'suicide' note - but we didn't know.
My mum asked me, around 9.30 that night, where I thought he was. I told her "bottom of the canal". She nodded and agreed.
He was in the river, but it's the same difference down there, the two merge not far beyond where they found him.
So tomorrow is the anniversary of his going missing and Sunday is the official death date, the one on the death certificate and on his gravestone, but it's not true, tomorrow is the day we lost him. The 10th is just the day we had it confirmed.
Three years on, I'm not okay with his death. I'm not okay that he did it, I'm not okay that he left us, I'm not okay with the mismanagement of his illness, I'm not okay with losing him when I did, I'm not okay that he isn't here anymore, I'm not okay with the stigma that surrounds suicide, I'm not okay with never hearing his voice again, I'm not okay with other people telling me that he would 'be so proud of me' when I wish he had told me that a bit more, I'm not okay, I'm not okay, I'm not okay.