friday, march 24th, 2023
all the things are in my head and i want- need? to get them down. i feel like sometime later i will want to know what was here or happening. even though not much of what i am observing can maybe even be trusted.
when susan told me my response was No. that's it. like a child. like i could stop it from being true by just speaking it into to existence. i kept saying no. but even then, even the second i heard the sound and the sob in her voice, even before she had said anything but my name, i had already shut down. i know this because even as i was saying no, i felt nothing. and everything since then has been both happening to me and yet not at all to me. some part of me is completely shut off, behind a locked glass box, and i do not have access to it.
she said mom had taken the dogs out, had to leave, but then came back and got on the phone. i asked who i could call and first she said gary, but then when i hesitated as to whether i had his number she quickly said she wanted to do it. so she told me to call pat and have her disseminate to the rest of the family on that side.
i moved to leave the event and there was a staff member putting a trash bag inside a can, in my path. i felt a split second stab of rage, like i actually had to hold my hand back from hitting him. it was gone and i smiled politely at him.
i called julius while driving to tell him. the logical and the rational parts of my brain seemed to be splitting from each other. i could hear myself trying to be logical but none of it was rational. i told him that maybe i needed to teach journey how to brush the dog's teeth before we sat her down to tell her, because she might not be able to take in the instructions after. he could tell, i'm sure, and just said come home, we will figure it all out together.
i remember being aware that i should not be driving, that i would see stoplights or other cars moving toward me but none of it made any sense. somehow i got home fine. i do remember at one point some sort of feeling clawing up from somewhere and out loud i said No. something pushed it down and it went away.
julius got up to move toward me and i put up my hand. i don't want a hug, not yet, i said. that's not what i need right now. i could not. don't come to me. he asked me some questions but i couldn't answer any of them. i felt empty and light. so light. like a shell, or a dessicated snakeskin. there weren't any emotions to access. i made a dark, morbid joke and laughed at it.
julius took me to the gym and i ran really really hard. at the end i was still in the same place. i felt the feeling in the car on the way home and shook my head. it went away.
normally i walk around cleaning and organizing my life and the house and will get distracted and start another cleaning/organizing project in the middle of a million others, like a russian nesting doll of slightly changing chaos everwhere. it works for me (probably not for julius). but as i tried to follow that plan parts were broken. i couldn't hold any thoughts in my head, it probably felt like avalon feels unmedicated. i went out to the garage to get a suitcase. 30 minutes later some things out there were moved around. i sat down to try and look for a bereavement flight. didn't even get to a single one. i heated up a biscuit, put butter and molasses on it, and ate it. i couldn't think of what to do next so i did that again. and then again. i took a shower. i remember shaking my head and saying no in there too.
julius went to do kid pickups because he didn't want me driving. but then i realized i had all this girl scout cookie cash that had to go into the bank by 5 pm. had to. so i pulled it all out and organized it. while doing that, sara lind called me. i comforted her. i said all the things i thought that would make her feel better. i hung up the phone.
i walked into the bank at 437 and the teller's eyes widened considerably. i felt absolutely nothing as i used death to gain sympathy into helping me get this done.
when i pulled up into the driveway, i saw bob outside in his yard. he's 95. i felt another sudden, brief stab of rage. at him. i went inside and felt some more nothing.
i looked and sounded normal on the outside, i think. the girls got home and julius decided we needed dinner, so he made it. we were all being lovely to each other.
we sat them down on the couch. i took a deep breath and rubbed my hands on my legs. that didn't help at all. i did it again. i said a few words, then did that again, then a few more, then again. i felt julius wanting me to get it out. i felt me wanting to get it out. i felt the girls not wanting me to get it out. they could tell something bad was going to come out.
journey sat very still, stunned. avalon immediately fell apart. i was a dry cold shell.
i sat on the couch rubbing avalon's back. journey leaned over onto her. julius sat close. we all sat.
i had said that i might look one way on the outside, but that i was in shock, and grief was going to manifest itself in multiple ways for all of us for a while. that all the feelings were normal and valid and terrible. that i would fall apart sometime, but for now i wasn't in that place.
part of me envied that avalon could cry. part of me was grateful that i wasn't there, so that i could be functional. i smiled and laughed with julius with terrible humor.
julius and i didn't go to the david wilcox show that night. he suggested offering up the tickets, but i couldn't think about that enough to focus and do anything about it.
when i go out of town, packing usually takes me a solid week. i did it in 5 minutes. turns out it takes no time at all when you don't care about anything.
that night i held avalon and told her that this next week i wanted her to look for beauty. not to make herself feel better per se. that might not happen at all. but to put pieces of beauty in front of her, into her sorrow. i was talking to myself.
on the plane i watched two music documentaries. during the first, which was for an artist i loved so much and who died a few years ago, he began to sing at one point and i felt tears. finally, i thought, here i can go. but it was only two tears, and it felt like it always feels when i am touched by music. lovely but fleeting. and surface. only on the surface. later in that documentary he talked about losing his mom. nothing. in the other documentary she talked about losing her dad. absolutely nothing. just another day.
as the plane moved closer to the other side of the country, i started to feel less light. heavier. exhausted. i tried to sleep but it didn't happen. when the plane doors opened, i could feel the humidity and it seemed to seep into me. i felt laden with it. breathing was harder. my backpack felt heavier. debbie reached for me and hugged me. i felt like a piece of wood or stone. immovable. we did not talk in the car.
there were azaleas everywhere.
when we got to the house, i walked to the back of the car to get my luggage. tom told me he would get it, to just go in to mom. i opened my mouth but couldn't think of any words. i went in the garage.
i stood at the bottom of the steps leading into the kitchen. i told my foot to step up. it did not listen. i stood there and looked at the wall that he would hold every time he came down the steps. the garage door opened behind me and i moved finally. climbing those three steps felt like i had already climbed a thousand other ones and could barely make it to the top.
i walked into the kitchen and susan was there, but facing away from me. she did not turn around. i stood in the doorway. i didn't know where to put my hands. i didn't know how to stand. i felt like a robot, but a broken one. she was not ok.
mom walked in and hugged me lightly. she smiled. i could not understand her face.
she asked if i wanted to sit down but i said i need to walk around. the three of us talked inconsequentially about some rando who came over last night and brought wings and drank dad's beer.
susan and i drove to the beach. it was windy and a little chilly but a beautiful sunset. not an intense one but a soft, lovely one. some (canadians probably) were playing in the water even. she talked about her job. it was nice. we sat on the sand.
susan had seen him, and her feelings were there. she was struggling, but talking about it. it looked healthy to me. i felt broken and heavy, but also knew that sometime later i would wish to have this disassociated time back.
she said that with all of the terrible, there was a gift. when they found him, he was so cold. and it was terrible. but if he had not been, that would have been maybe a much worse terrible. because then she would have tried to resuscitate him. or maybe that would have worked and they would have had to make decisions about life support. he was asleep. he was at peace. she was right. i felt grateful. it was a surface feeling, but i would take what i could get.
she asked if i wanted to see him. i still don't have an answer. i haven't been with him or seen him since last june. she says he looked very different after these last few months of intense weight loss, swelling, muscle loss, different medications, struggle breathing. she said it might make it real for me. she said i might not want that memory.
she said that right after they discovered what had happened, mom was mom. she started walking around and cleaning up, putting things away. of his. he was still lying there in the bed i think. they called tom and debbie who called 911. susan felt not ok at this, it felt like evidence of him was being erased. i could see myself in both of their actions and feelings. she said that later she felt a little mom's way too, that she had to move his walker to the garage so she wouldn't see it every time she came into the den.
she said she went out into the yard pretty much right after it happened to call the drugstore and make sure they wouldn't be calling to ask to fill prescriptions in the future, that she didn't want to hear those phone calls. she had to be on hold. the hold music was jack and diane. life goes on. she screamed into the backyard. later she said it felt like he made that happen to laugh at her. i like that thought.
when i walked into the den yesterday, his empty chair was like an assault. the emptiness of it felt loud, like it was yelling at me. it didn't make me feel anything, but i observed in my head, in a detached way, how violent it felt. i didn't know what to do about it, so i took a picture of it. mom made small talk about the chair.
we watched figure skating. mom showed me someone else's obituary and said that if i had thoughts about what we wanted in ours, to write them down. she started looking for pictures of him to use in a service. she couldn't find any recent ones. susan had taken one in january, and he looked much thinner. but in that one had a joyous smile on his face as he ate ice cream in avalon's birthday honor. i loved it. it's a little blurry.
i looked at those pictures and it felt like i was trying to pick at a scab, or poke at something to see if the pain would finally show up. i started making myself think of memories to force something to happen. i had vague nice feelings about memories.
i walked into their bedroom. mom had slept in there last night, which i didn't think she would do. the sheets and pillows are still all the same. his water cup was still sitting on his nightstand. i looked at the stools, the chairs every few feet, the hand rail, the CPAP machine, the walker, the bandages, the pictures of the girls all next to that corner. i didn't know what to do. i took a picture.
mom came in to pick out her clothes for church. i asked if she felt up to people coming up and talking to her, and she said she would just go in, play with the handbell choir, and duck out. she said she felt like she needed to be there for at least that part because they had already lost another member. that person lost her husband two weeks ago. i said well clearly that person needs to come back and tag you out, your death is closer. she laughed. i smiled on the outside of me.
after she left this morning i walked around the house, inside and outside. i went into the little shed he had made from scratch with his two hands. i opened the door and ratatouille and his brother scampered away from me. i looked at all the wood and tools and projects. we did some of those together.
i walked around the perimeter of the back yard. everywhere i looked i saw old, rotted wood falling apart. it was weathered, unprotected, weighed down by years and years of age and use and life.
in between were the intense blooms of the azaleas. i found some beauty.
i still feel nothing.