LJ Idol - Week 18: Adored
LJ Idol - Week 18: Adored
I think it would be fair to say that everyone who knew him loved my cousin Chris. He was a big, dopey bear-cub of a young man who came from a large family, all of whom are prone to openness and friendliness.
"John?"
"Mom? What's wrong? Are you ok?"
"Your cousin Chris C. died last night."
"Holy shit... What happened?"
"We're not sure, yet."
They are a clan, surrounded by more friends than any of them seems to know what to do with, even while they are unable to turn away a visitor. Chris lived at home with his mother, Maryalice, and was about the same age as my kid sister.
"He was playing cards with Maryalice the night before. She found him there in the morning."
"Oh god, I can't imagine. I'm on my way over, I just have to let my boss know I'm leaving."
She went to bed and found him dead at the table in the morning. I try not to imagine waking up in the morning and finding my own son dead. I imagine her smiling to herself, thinking he'd fallen asleep where she left him. I imagine her gently rocking his shoulder, maybe whispering in his ear to wake up.
I imagine her feeling his cold, lifeless body unresponsive.
I imagine the sound that must have erupted from her.
"They're saying it looks like he had a heart attack."
"Jesus, really? He was Melanie's age, wasn't he?"
"Just about. He was twenty five."
"Goddamn..."
"You have to take care of yourself, honey."
"I do, ma. I do what I can."
In the years leading up to that moment, my aunt Maryalice and her family had their homes destroyed in a sequence of hurricane's that no one remembers anymore because of Katrina. After surviving her own battle with cancer, she lost her husband to the same. Life hadn't treated their family well.
"They found drugs in his room."
"I thought he was clean."
"I guess we all did."
"You think that might have contributed, somehow?"
"Probably."
News filtered across the continent slowly and in waves. My mother has a fairly large family and everyone was taking their turns calling and offering support and trying to piece the story together as it developed. As each sibling got more news, more calls were made to keep the others up to date. I don't know if they had a proper phone tree arranged, but my mother was on the phone most of the morning.
"I tried calling again to get information for the bereavement rates. She couldn't talk, the police were still there."
"Seriously? What the hell?"
"You think that's strange?"
"I don't know, it's been at least six hours, hasn't it? It seems strange."
As a family with Irish roots, we turn to beer in times of loss. We traded stories and memories around the kitchen, pausing frequently to let the situation sink in. Most of them were happy memories of Chris. We moved away from his family when he was two or three, but I can still see him running across the sand at me, a sloppy, naked grin filling his cheeks. I reconnected with him almost twenty years later and it was as though I'd known him my whole life.
"Now the Medical Examiner is saying that he thinks it was an overdose."
"Oh my god."
"I know! Poor Mary must be beside herself."
My mother's family was always close, no matter how far apart they might find themselves. Their mother died when I was still quite young, leaving Maryalice particularly vulnerable, and their father died some twenty years ago. They should have been done with close family deaths for a while, but out of nowhere they lost a brother five years later and really never got all the way past it.
"When your mother called me, she just said 'Chris died last night.' And... And I thought she meant your brother in law..."
"Oh, Jesus, Dad..."
"...She clarified it right away and I thought, 'Oh, thank God!'"
"Yeah..."
"...And then I realized that Maryalice... she didn't get any sort of relief. She doesn't get an escape. Her son is dead."
Calls continued to come and go. My mother was away from the kitchen more and more to talk where she wouldn't be interrupting. Eventually she put the phone down and came back looking suddenly older and more haggard. The waves of news somehow kept crashing.
"I finally got through..."
"Jesus, Mom, are you alright?"
"The police... They found... a note on the computer."
"... no..."
"She said it was... it was angry. 'Fuck this and fuck that and fuck you too.' That he-"
I slammed my fist into the kitchen table in a sudden, barely containable rage. My father, who couldn't hear very well, missed most of this part of the conversation until I nearly broke his table.
"What? What happened?"
"The sonofabitch killed himself."
"What?"
"That useless fucking sack of shit-"
"John!"
"What? What? His mother hasn't been through e-fucking-nough already?"
Until I was eight, I was an only child. Chris was born just a few months after my sister. I had a lot of cousins, though, and we were all close. Almost the way siblings are, but maybe not quite. We frequently spent long weekends all together at the beach. Even though we moved away when he was still very small, he was still my family and I still loved him almost as a brother. Meeting him again and for the first time as a young man at my parent's second wedding, sharing a few beers with him in the night, I had the same connection with him that I enjoyed with the rest of the cousins that I knew before we left. He was family, just a little short of being a brother.
The next time I saw him was at his father's funeral and I tried to be there for him and his brothers as best I could. The family stayed close, nights were full of beer, wine, stories and songs. We did what we could.
He was twenty five when he killed himself.
I think it would be fair to say that everyone loved my cousin Chris the day before he killed himself, but what a difference a day can make, sometimes. I've never forgiven him, I don't think I ever will. I eventually came to peace with the fact that I could still love his memory, but it's not the same, and my feelings for him as a whole have suffered for what he's done. He presumably had his reasons, I still call "bullshit."
But I have the luxury of distance. I have the luxury of hating him and what he did to his family.
Sometimes I still imagine waking up in the morning and finding my own son dead. I imagine trying to wake him up. I imagine my smile fading as realization sinks in. I imagine what would come out of me. I wonder how long it would be before I could let go of him. I wonder how long it would be before I could even call family, to say nothing of the police.
I imagine the morning playing out the same way as it did for my aunt, I imagine discovering that my son had killed himself. I imagine the despair and the utter failure I would feel as a parent. And I finally honestly realize why she grieves. It's easy for me to write a suicide off as being weak, unforgivable. But my own son? Could I hate him? Even for that? Even for a moment?
Neither could his mother and his brothers. They still love him even in spite of what he did, and it's only just now that I can appreciate why. They can love him and they can be there for each other and they can continue on.
Another luxury I have is that I don't have any other children. Hunter is the only one.
Growing up Catholic, I was taught that suicide is one of only a very few things that are truly unforgivable in the eyes of God. That's probably where my own feelings originate. I don't actually believe in a god or an afterlife anymore, but the judgment remains. That said, I don't know that I could bear to be away from my son. Not like that. If there were even a chance, no matter how remote, that there might be an afterlife and that I might be forever separated from him within it, I would do everything in my power to follow him.
Better to suffer in hell with him than to suffer in heaven without him.
This is an unutterably shitty topic to use for a writing competition, but it locked itself in early and I haven't been able to shake it. At this point it's something that needs to come out regardless. I'm honestly not trying to be manipulative. I don't know why I felt that needed to be said, but there it is.
My cousin Chris killed himself a little shy of two years ago. Hardly ancient history, but not fresh either.
I think it would be fair to say that everyone who knew him loved my cousin Chris. He was a big, dopey bear-cub of a young man who came from a large family, all of whom are prone to openness and friendliness.
"John?"
"Mom? What's wrong? Are you ok?"
"Your cousin Chris C. died last night."
"Holy shit... What happened?"
"We're not sure, yet."
They are a clan, surrounded by more friends than any of them seems to know what to do with, even while they are unable to turn away a visitor. Chris lived at home with his mother, Maryalice, and was about the same age as my kid sister.
"He was playing cards with Maryalice the night before. She found him there in the morning."
"Oh god, I can't imagine. I'm on my way over, I just have to let my boss know I'm leaving."
She went to bed and found him dead at the table in the morning. I try not to imagine waking up in the morning and finding my own son dead. I imagine her smiling to herself, thinking he'd fallen asleep where she left him. I imagine her gently rocking his shoulder, maybe whispering in his ear to wake up.
I imagine her feeling his cold, lifeless body unresponsive.
I imagine the sound that must have erupted from her.
"They're saying it looks like he had a heart attack."
"Jesus, really? He was Melanie's age, wasn't he?"
"Just about. He was twenty five."
"Goddamn..."
"You have to take care of yourself, honey."
"I do, ma. I do what I can."
In the years leading up to that moment, my aunt Maryalice and her family had their homes destroyed in a sequence of hurricane's that no one remembers anymore because of Katrina. After surviving her own battle with cancer, she lost her husband to the same. Life hadn't treated their family well.
"They found drugs in his room."
"I thought he was clean."
"I guess we all did."
"You think that might have contributed, somehow?"
"Probably."
News filtered across the continent slowly and in waves. My mother has a fairly large family and everyone was taking their turns calling and offering support and trying to piece the story together as it developed. As each sibling got more news, more calls were made to keep the others up to date. I don't know if they had a proper phone tree arranged, but my mother was on the phone most of the morning.
"I tried calling again to get information for the bereavement rates. She couldn't talk, the police were still there."
"Seriously? What the hell?"
"You think that's strange?"
"I don't know, it's been at least six hours, hasn't it? It seems strange."
As a family with Irish roots, we turn to beer in times of loss. We traded stories and memories around the kitchen, pausing frequently to let the situation sink in. Most of them were happy memories of Chris. We moved away from his family when he was two or three, but I can still see him running across the sand at me, a sloppy, naked grin filling his cheeks. I reconnected with him almost twenty years later and it was as though I'd known him my whole life.
"Now the Medical Examiner is saying that he thinks it was an overdose."
"Oh my god."
"I know! Poor Mary must be beside herself."
My mother's family was always close, no matter how far apart they might find themselves. Their mother died when I was still quite young, leaving Maryalice particularly vulnerable, and their father died some twenty years ago. They should have been done with close family deaths for a while, but out of nowhere they lost a brother five years later and really never got all the way past it.
"When your mother called me, she just said 'Chris died last night.' And... And I thought she meant your brother in law..."
"Oh, Jesus, Dad..."
"...She clarified it right away and I thought, 'Oh, thank God!'"
"Yeah..."
"...And then I realized that Maryalice... she didn't get any sort of relief. She doesn't get an escape. Her son is dead."
Calls continued to come and go. My mother was away from the kitchen more and more to talk where she wouldn't be interrupting. Eventually she put the phone down and came back looking suddenly older and more haggard. The waves of news somehow kept crashing.
"I finally got through..."
"Jesus, Mom, are you alright?"
"The police... They found... a note on the computer."
"... no..."
"She said it was... it was angry. 'Fuck this and fuck that and fuck you too.' That he-"
I slammed my fist into the kitchen table in a sudden, barely containable rage. My father, who couldn't hear very well, missed most of this part of the conversation until I nearly broke his table.
"What? What happened?"
"The sonofabitch killed himself."
"What?"
"That useless fucking sack of shit-"
"John!"
"What? What? His mother hasn't been through e-fucking-nough already?"
Until I was eight, I was an only child. Chris was born just a few months after my sister. I had a lot of cousins, though, and we were all close. Almost the way siblings are, but maybe not quite. We frequently spent long weekends all together at the beach. Even though we moved away when he was still very small, he was still my family and I still loved him almost as a brother. Meeting him again and for the first time as a young man at my parent's second wedding, sharing a few beers with him in the night, I had the same connection with him that I enjoyed with the rest of the cousins that I knew before we left. He was family, just a little short of being a brother.
The next time I saw him was at his father's funeral and I tried to be there for him and his brothers as best I could. The family stayed close, nights were full of beer, wine, stories and songs. We did what we could.
He was twenty five when he killed himself.
I think it would be fair to say that everyone loved my cousin Chris the day before he killed himself, but what a difference a day can make, sometimes. I've never forgiven him, I don't think I ever will. I eventually came to peace with the fact that I could still love his memory, but it's not the same, and my feelings for him as a whole have suffered for what he's done. He presumably had his reasons, I still call "bullshit."
But I have the luxury of distance. I have the luxury of hating him and what he did to his family.
Sometimes I still imagine waking up in the morning and finding my own son dead. I imagine trying to wake him up. I imagine my smile fading as realization sinks in. I imagine what would come out of me. I wonder how long it would be before I could let go of him. I wonder how long it would be before I could even call family, to say nothing of the police.
I imagine the morning playing out the same way as it did for my aunt, I imagine discovering that my son had killed himself. I imagine the despair and the utter failure I would feel as a parent. And I finally honestly realize why she grieves. It's easy for me to write a suicide off as being weak, unforgivable. But my own son? Could I hate him? Even for that? Even for a moment?
Neither could his mother and his brothers. They still love him even in spite of what he did, and it's only just now that I can appreciate why. They can love him and they can be there for each other and they can continue on.
Another luxury I have is that I don't have any other children. Hunter is the only one.
Growing up Catholic, I was taught that suicide is one of only a very few things that are truly unforgivable in the eyes of God. That's probably where my own feelings originate. I don't actually believe in a god or an afterlife anymore, but the judgment remains. That said, I don't know that I could bear to be away from my son. Not like that. If there were even a chance, no matter how remote, that there might be an afterlife and that I might be forever separated from him within it, I would do everything in my power to follow him.
Better to suffer in hell with him than to suffer in heaven without him.
This is an unutterably shitty topic to use for a writing competition, but it locked itself in early and I haven't been able to shake it. At this point it's something that needs to come out regardless. I'm honestly not trying to be manipulative. I don't know why I felt that needed to be said, but there it is.
My cousin Chris killed himself a little shy of two years ago. Hardly ancient history, but not fresh either.