April 20 2011. September 2012. I haven’t written in a while. I have witnessed my sister’s marriage, have been to Thailand, joined a hockey club and hit a few balls at Top Golf. Haven’t had the impulse to sit down and put into words all that has passed nor did I have the attention span, truth be told. It seemed, after a while, that the more I wrote about the feelings and the journey, more and more people felt it represented a woman who wasn’t grieving well, wasn’t moving on as if there was a statute of limitations on mourning or a prescription as to what that should look like. “Your mom has been dying for a while”, I was told just two weeks before my mom died. “You’re still grieving?”, months after they were gone. Really, as I’ve come to learn, we aren’t well equipped to deal with people who have suffered such profound loss. Most don’t know what to say or what to do. They either feel they must offer wisdom, fear they’ll bring up sadness on an otherwise “sunny” day, or find themselves not wise enough to offer the basics of comfort. Truth is, neither was the perfect pill. It’s a journey one must first endure, then experience. As my friend who lost her dad once said, “Brace yourself. It’ll be a bumpy ride.” Despite her experience, she wasn’t there for me. I now understand, in part, I guess. All I wanted was someone who was interested in understanding, someone who would ask questions and be patient with the answers. It was a long, lonely road but one I find myself debating even as some of my acquaintances face similar losses. Still, I risk being the ass that asked rather than the ass that didn’t’. I understand though. I was once resentful but now I’m more understanding, in part. Ask the tough questions. Be there, I tell myself. I think the best message anyone could give is to say, “I don’t know what you’re going through. I want you to feel comfortable talking about it. I’ll ask you questions. You don’t have to answer them. You don’t have to talk about it. It’s okay. Just tell me. But, I’ll be there for you when you need me.”
Fast forward four years. I have never posted about the last fireworks I have been to in 4 years nor the moments after that fireworks show. Now that posting is buried somewhere in the files of an inherited computer broken down from the blue screen of death. I have it saved, but no way to retrieve it as of yet. Some day. As with other memories, saved and ready to be retrieved with the right devices, the right moment, the right time. The clear look of Craig’s eyes. My mom’s smile. Some day.
Still, I find myself writing more than a year and a half after the last posting. Another Olympics has passed. London. Another Democratic National Convention. North Carolina. Another Stand Up to Cancer telethon. Who knows. This recipe is probably lost on all but those who were there on Arapahoe street, Denver 2008. A Beijing Olympics watched in Craig’s apartment. A DNC held in Denver; Craig found the strength to walk to his apartment window to witness hundreds walking in support of his common causes. A Stand Up to Cancer first, at least for us, where we watched with both tears and that pissed off determined look we are sometimes known for—eyebrows narrowed, forehead furrowed, frankenviens forming a bulge at the temples. The goddammit we are fighting too feeling and the wish that Craig and Mom could be a heartwarming success story on TV. Truth is, four years now, and I’ve heard more than a few people suggest that happy, optimistic people beat cancer. Suggesting, as well, that somehow those who die from cancer succumb not only to the disease but from will, from optimism, from happiness, from the yearning to live and survive. Eff that. I was on an exercise machine Friday when another Stand Up to Cancer telethon was broadcasted with every celebrity asking for resources on the face of a success story, someone with charisma and beating cancer. I’m for that cause, but I’m also for all those charismatic fighting souls whose systems were taken by cancer—a monopolizing, selfish, destructive entity that strickens some and not others. It’s not because of will or want that people survive or die. It’s a thing like the great Stephen King novel “the Thing” and it takes some and not all. Those that fall, those that die are the stones that keep others from drowning, the way others reach with their tippy toes for solid ground. It is those stones that have fallen before, settling into the days and years, forming a foundation with the history of others and giving height for people after them to catch air and continue the good fight. That’s my mom. That’s my brother. And as I dripped sweat and drew tears in my eyes, that is me, that is my family. Every day, every anniversary of their death, every birthday, that is me and my family lifting my mom and brother in thought and carrying them through. Together, they’re stones in a bridge between death and that next chance and I’m determined their voices are heard. Each year, I make the anniversary of their death and their birth something different, something people can hold onto—champagne in a park, coffee in the morning, favorite chocolates whispering take me…today. I keep them alive.
Too regularly, I find myself even wondering if this is reality. My eyes close. Did Craig, my brother, ACTUALLY die? Did my mom, and her voice, ACTUALLY die? Living in another state, it’s easy to believe that they are just elsewhere. I know I’m not alone. It’s the DNC. Craig was an Obama supporter even before his Hiliary-supporting sisters. A missed call and I know I’m not alone. I call back to find Steve, Craig’s loyal, childhood friend. The moment and season wasn’t lost on him. As days float on for his friends, Steve remembered Craig staunchly embedded in the DNC and likely, with any breath left in him, would have rallied the same. With receiver to ear, I slid down my apartment wall, watching the cats (one very sick) as they ate and reminiscing a time that was no less complicated. Not comparable by any means. I recalled my mom saying goodbye to the cats in a mediocre best western hotel room. Hunter green bedspreads covered the beds where she sat. She stroked Sammy then Maxie and said goodbye knowing it might be the last that she sees them. She said I love you. Steve asked me to convey that to Craig before he died. I did. And, there I was watching the cats, remembering my mom and brother, listening to Steve and wishing for a better tomorrow. He gets it. My sisters, dad, Emily and family get it. Close your eyes and guess to what reality really brings you. That's not being stuck in grieving, it is honoring and remembering two people who were and are such a significant part of our lives. It is still progress. Still happiness.
Loss and tragedy don’t define us but they give us definition. My mom and brother will always be a part of me, part of my family. As they should be.
We chase life with them in the wind...
~E
